POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN INDIA DURING THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC .

The Covid 19 pandemic forced India into a lockdown in March 2020. It lead to a sudden loss of employment for the poor of India. The lockdown in India also presented the country’s migration crises to be resolved. The poor of India suffered a lot as they did not have any source of income during the lockdown. The reason behind this is they are not educated enough that they can earn money from their homes as well. Not only poor but the middle class sector of the country suffered especially the business one as there businesses were shut during the pandemic and they had to feed them as well as their families with the limited savings they had. Only the service sector people were not affected much as they were working from home and was earning a residual income as well. Due to the rise in unemployment level there is a massive inflation in food. As per the report of August 2020 the inflation rate in the country remains high at 9.05 percent. As per the data released by Mumbai bases think tank CMIE the income of the workers employed in the informal sector including the migrant labourers have been severely hit. Most of the migrant workers have failed to secure pre-covid 19 income levels even after the government relaxed the lockdown restrictions in the country.

Talking about the poverty in the last five months the INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANISATION ( ILO ) estimated that nearby 400 million workers in India’s informal economy are at risk of falling deeper into poverty. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, more than 18.9 million salaried people lost their jobs since April 2020. Not only this 5 million people lost their jobs in July 2020. This pandemic did not only affect the people of the country but also the country’s economy as well. According to the report of the government of India the economy has contracted by 23.9% in the first quarter making the beginning of deep recession. Real GDP growth in the country had fallen from 6.1% in 2018-2019 to 4.2% in 2019-2020. OXFAM reports the cumulative wealth of just 63 rich people in India was greater than the entire union government budget for 2018-2019.

I have full faith on the government of India that our country will soon gonna be on track.