Covid 19 conundrum: Challenges and Perspectives

Covid 19 has rocked the world economy and India in manifold ways and the whole world is struggling to overcome the short term and medium term implications of this global pandemic.

How to keep the economy going?

The Indian economy is an agrarian economy and has been gradually focusing on its industrial development in collaboration with the various leading economies of the world.

The best strategy to keep the economy going is to unlock the economy in a phased manner by having optimal levels of checks and balances.

How long should it continue?

The lockdown should not continue for more than two weeks. Lockdown has helped a lot in saving the people by avoiding the exponential growth of the deadly virus, but it has impacted the economy tremendously.

We must unlock all the sectors of the economy as soon as possible to avoid the economy going from deep slump from where the recovery may become very challenging, if not impossible.

The government has been treading very cautiously to find the central balance between saving the lives of millions of citizens and the professional interests of working professionals and the economy.

The best strategy which is likely to be most effective is to focus on strengthening the immunity of the citizens by series of sensitization programmes, lifestyle management courses, apps, yoga sessions, diet improvisation apart from having various precautions of social distancing and other preventive and prohibitory guidelines along with strengthening the Hospitals and Healthcare infrastructure.

The most important recommendation is to leverage the various suggestions given by the AYUSH ministry and its dedicated Apps like Arogya and AYUSH Kavach.

This may continue for few weeks to a prolonged period with varied intermittent intensities. The Government should take multi-pronged preventive and corrective strategies.

Prof (Dr) Rana Singh, Vice Chancellor Sanskriti University.