Restarting the growth engine

Restarting is easy but a full-speed drive is still some time away

Long before pandemics and lockdowns became the new normal, there was an old joke that god created economists to make weather forecasters look good. The transition from prioritising life (lockdown) to prioritising livelihood (unlocking) has been a messy one for India.

First, the lockdown restrictions for the most part have been far from homogenous with the definition of unlocking varying wildly across geography. Second, factories, warehouses, suppliers and customers are currently dispersed over a national collage of red, orange, and green zones implying that demand and supply lines remain frayed. Third, the mass exodus of migrant labourers to rural areas