New Survey Shows Virus Fear And Logistical Challenges Emerging As The Reason Of Lower Economic Activity In Delhi

Due to the Fear of the COVID-19 and which is emerging as a single-biggest factor hindering resumption of normal work routines for farmers, salaried workers, and small businesses. For daily wage laborers, Reason Being the lack of work was a bigger concern now, NCAER conducted the Survey by the NDIC (National Data Innovation Center)

Recently they performed the latest survey in Delhi NCR Coronavirus Via Telephone Survey (DCVTS) between 15-23 June, In Which They involved telephonic interviews with 3,466 households spread across 12 districts of the Delhi-NCR region. It was the third such survey In a row that is conducted by NCAER NDIC in recent months and in which they covered respondents from the states of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan whose belonging to the NCR region. After the survey, they found that half of the respondents were from villages and the rest from urban areas.

According to this survey, the economic conditions are still not well for many workers and small businesses. Where the Businesses are unable to find enough customers, and on the other hand workers are finding it hard to get work. Furthermore, the fear of Getting Infected with coronavirus stops many employers from calling back to their employees Not only this the absence of public transport also has been emerged as another big challenge in getting back to work for the Daily wages workes.

With the Survey of DCVTS, It shows that this pandemic-induced lockdown hit economic activities hard. But Daily laborers Were the One which it hit hardest during the lockdown, and Reason Being their work participation rates also dropped sharply in the month of April-May period before recovering partly in June, However, it still remains far below pre-lockdown levels. On the other hand, the Small businesses and he Salaried workers also got the hit and now have seen only a partial return to the economic level.

With the above picture, it is clear to see that despite some disruption, most of the farmers continued to work and harvest the Rabi crops and prepare for the Kharif, Hence The Agriculture labored were less affected as compared to the other daily wage workers.

It Can be seen that during the lockdown phase (April-May), 44% of regular salaried employees were able to continue in their jobs. Among regular employees, and the public sector workers were the most privileged in this list, with 92% of them continuing to receive their salaries. In contrast, only 54% of the private sector workers received any salary during the lockdown.

For the Households Owning Small Business, this lockdown was an existential challenge. As more than half suspended their activities in the month of April-May and 12% shut shop Permanently, and that business stayed open-faced the substantial Challenges in Inputs and finding the consumers.

In spite of this, the Relaxation In Lockdown Restriction since early June the 76% of the household Business that were open In March Were functioning by Mid-June.

Daily wage laborers were the most hit during the lockdown and as they have found it hardest to find work now for their livelihood. Even Two-thirds of them were unable to work at all during the lockdown and the rest found work for some days. Less than 3% of the wage laborers found work on most days during the April-May period.

It does not end here as the loss of work was particularly high for casual laborers which are working in construction or other manual work, Till June, only 62% of casual laborers were able to come back to work and half of this group noted that although they found work, it was with great difficulty to work along with the fear of Covid-19.

On the DCVTS-III Survey the Diverse Experiences are reflected In Concrete Markers of distress, and according to this survey the share of the hungry and indebted were higher among the daily wage laborers and the small business owner, In this data. Farmers and salaried workers reported lower distress In the Delhi-NCR Region In Terms of Hunger.

However, the government’s response to such distress has largely Beneficity as, cash transfers. For instance, the allocation of cereals and pulses, the food distribution system was raised and cash transfers also were made to the bank accounts of Jan Dhan Yojana (JDY) beneficiaries.

As the Economy Unlocks Further It is more important to ease the Logistical Challenges Faced by the Farmers, Small Business and workers In moving goods, Finding jobs, and reaching their workplaces and the most importantly Social distancing measures in bazaars, buses, and trains will need to be strictly enforced to ensure that workers can travel to their workplace, without fear of the transmission of the virus.

Sonalde Desai is a professor at the University of Maryland and director, NCAER NDIC.