For those of you who would have read the Gabriel Marquez novel with rhyming
title, I must assure you this is much bigger than the struggles of Florentino
and Fermina. The Corona Virus (COVID-19) has been the biggest talk of the town
in the first half of 2020 and by the looks of it, poses global threat to more than
200 countries combined, including India. This
pandemic has shaken the foundations of the international order. It has already
taken a toll in advanced countries known for their health care infrastructure
and accessibility. Developing countries, struggling with inadequate State
capacity, face the challenge of both dealing with the health catastrophe and
its economic fallout. As of now when global deaths are pegged around 40k
and confirmed cases around 800k. The situation is
precarious in India, with its 1.3 billion people and a weak health care system.
But what has been the refreshing change is the dynamism and how the government
has reacted to this pandemic. While not much can be done to redress the
structural inadequacies at such short notice, government has been moving fast
to augment capacity like placing orders for 50k ventilators to nearly double
their numbers. The mini migrant crisis of the laborers’ was a sign of some lack
of co-ordination between centre and states/UTs. But the way it was handled by
states such as UP, Telangana, Maharashtra and a couple of others was praiseworthy.
But this crisis has also validated
several of the major policy decisions of the Narendra Modi government in the
past six years. Major relief measures such as medical insurance to frontline
health workers and income support to vulnerable groups using direct benefits
transfer are testimony to formidable state capacity. Such measures would have
been unthinkable a few years ago, but for the massive infrastructure built by implementing
policies like Aadhaar, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY) and Digital India.
Today India’s banked population is more than 80%, a sharp increase from around
50% in 2014. And the credit goes to the extraordinary push given by the PMJDY,
which now boasts of 380 million bank accounts; 1.25 billion Aadhaar cards have
been issued and the number of Smartphone users alone has crossed 500 million,
with a total number of mobile phones at 1.21 billion. Now 690 million Indians
subscribe to the Internet, with urban net penetration at 104%.
The push given to National Payments
Corporation of India has boosted innovation and connectivity, thus revolutionizing
banking and governance. There are more than 600 million RuPay cards, most
associated with the PMJDY accounts and 1.2 billion transactions are being done
over BHIM UPI alone which accounts only for the 5% market share in the
bourgeoning UPI ecosystem. The “JAM trinity”, which transformed the social
security paradigm, has become the preferred route to support people staring at
an uncertain future due to the lockdown. It is to the credit of Modi that
despite his earlier concerns, he quickly grasped the potential of these schemes
and invested his political and administrative capital in achieving what UPA failed
to attain. Because of this, India today is in a far better position to deal
with the pandemic. Schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana increasing gas
cylinder coverage, Digilocker, BharatNet, integrating governance and social
media, 100% electrification, construction of more than 2 crore houses under the
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Ayushman Bharat and various pension schemes for the
unorganized sector have made us better prepared to deal with the lockdown and
economic distress. These schemes also generate a crucial database of the
beneficiaries that is now being utilized by the government to ensure relief to
the maximum number of people possible especially in the unorganized sector. The
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was mocked and dismissed as a gimmick, but sanitation has
substantially improved. Better sanitation and hygiene has already been saving
hundreds of thousands of lives, as per the estimates of the World Health Organization,
and its importance during a pandemic cannot be emphasized enough.
Covid-19 also settles the debate on the
National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), by
demonstrating the necessity for a complete and verifiable database of
population and citizens as even now a large number of people are outside the
ambit of relief measure due to the lack of such a database. Such a database and
State-capacity of need-based surveillance, unshackled by strict privacy
concerns, are central to the success of countries like South Korea, Taiwan and
China and Singapore in containing the pandemic.
So what has been the combined impact of
all these schemes and social distancing measures that have been taken by people
themselves?
This study by fellows from ISI Delhi and
Brookings India outlines the impact. These measures in combination have started
to flatten out the curve that was skyrocketing till 10 days back. India has so
far reported 41 deaths as of 31 March 31, 2020 but considering that total
deaths in Italy has been closed 12k and 10k in Spain with total population of
60 million and 47 million respectively, it would be foolish to not take this in
account. Moreover UP with population of close to 230 million people, which has
been traditionally a BIMARU state, is amongst the best performing ones in
dealing with the pandemic with no deaths and total cases close to 85. UP CM
Maharaj Yogi Adityanath has stood out with his dynamic leadership and ability
to take strict and inclusive measures.
But, for now, it is the economic
question that needs to be addressed next. A decade-long slowdown has already
limited the capacity of the government to undertake relief measures. The
economy was already in the midst of the restructuring due to disruptive
policies implemented in the last few years. It is unclear if it can absorb
another shock and yet emerge unscathed. We have no precedents to fall back
upon. The nearest analogy might well be that of wartime reconstruction. But
what we do have is a strong government at centre and a PM with an uncanny
ability to do the impossible. So Bharat in the times of Corona is going to be a
much more interesting and hopeful story than the rhyming literature from Mr.
Marquez.
NOTE: Special Thanks to the following contributor. This has been written in consultation and contribution from Mr Abhinav Prakash, Asst Prof SRCC, University of Delhi
