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Covid-19: Let us explore the opportunities

Covid-19: Let us explore the opportunities
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Simranjeet Singh
Every fall in the economy can be seen as a new opportunity. The coronavirus pandemic has made a huge disruption in economic activities and resulted the biggest loss to the global economy in a small period of time. The silver lining of Covid-19 is that it has generated a huge demand of personal hygienic and protective equipment world over. Also there is a high demand of paramedical and cleaning staff. Government’s quick and pro-active measure may be a game changer for Indian economy.
Corona has made a huge impact round the globe within a very short span of time. No economy, no person, no corporate, no product in fact nothing was spared by the pandemic which originated in Wuhan province of China in late 2019. Its massive and fast spread all over the world has compelled the think-tank to find some quick innovative solution at present and also to cope up with the future conditions as well.
Our discussion, here, is limited to its impact on economy, resulting an opening a new era in world economy where India can play a leading role.
The large number of economic activities, like education, travelling, entertainment, games and sports, tourism, religious, non-religious, political and apolitical meetings and gatherings stopped unexpectedly by the outbreak of Corona virus. People across the world are bound to start thinking on healthcare, lifestyle, food habits, sanitisation, cleaning, social distance maintaining, thank God the advancement in technology makes it feasible to a large extent. It seems that the biggest victim of corona virus is the economy, i.e., the livelihood of the people and not the life of people.
Transport sectors irrespective of its nature land, water or air are badly hit by Corona lockdown and other precautionary measures taken by the government. Some of the small operators are already facing cash crunch and may be hard hit of bankruptcy in the coming days.
Second big hit of lockdown is the hotel industry which has been struggling due to the slow down for quite some time now. Big business may turn around with some initial difficulties but the smaller may face difficulties in terms of financial and operational demands in restarting the operations. Tourism sector which are complimentary to hotel industry is cent percent in loss is not seeing a revival very soon. The entertainment industry in the form of film industry, small-screen industry, event organising is also following the similar fate. The unemployment generated in these sectors is a big concern to the economy.
The restaurant and fast food sector is another big hit of Corona lockdown. The sector is limping back to some sort of normalcy but has left a long trail of unemployed and trained staff.
A large number of industries are closed under lockdown resulting in productions closure, many of them need long time to get back on track. So a possibility is that there will be a demand – supply gap will cause price rise.
The auto sector has been passing under a hard time and this sector too has now faced a big burnt. Its ancillary industries considered to be a good employment generating, enters into a very grim situation.
Similar condition is noted in realty sector. This sector is also high employment- generating. But the revival of this sector will be a long drawn story in the present scenario.
Though the essential commodities like, food grains, milk, medicine, LPG, vegetables etc. were kept out of the ambit of the lockdown but due to disruption in supply chain this sector too has witnessed disruptions.
Government now needs a meticulous planning to deal with the unusual economic condition along with ensuring health care so that the situation stabilized in a year or two.
Opportunity for Indian Economy
A large number of workers have lost their job due to economic lockdown. So a big opportunity in India for labour intensive industries is to expand and exploit the world market. Covid -19 has generated a huge demand of personal hygienic and protective equipment world over. Also there is a high demand of paramedical and cleaning staff. Government is expected to make some reformative measure so that industries working in this sector can expand and also new enterprise may come out.
Pro-environment machineries and equipment those which control or reduce pollution will be at higher demand in the coming days and Indian industries can take this as an opportunity. Some drugs produced by Indian Pharmaceutical industries are already at higher global demand after the outbreak.
More global demand will come out for essential goods as production and supply chain in some developed countries are badly disrupted. More manpower demand will be generated in service sector relating to healthcare. Government need to come out with training and skill development in this sector which can be a large employment generating sector for India.
China is the country from where corona virus originated and the way they have dealt with it has showed us the way. But still China may have to bear the burden of international loss in the form of export loss in future. This can be seen as an opportunity for Indian industries to flourish their business globally.
(The writer is a student at the Islamic University of Science and Technology)


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