India’s economy to bounce back & emerge stronger from Covid crisis, says FICCI President

FICCI President Dr Sangita Reddy said that India took the path of a strict lockdown to ramp up health infrastructure, focused on saving lives and that strategy paid off.

A pedestrian wearing a protective mask walks past shuttered stores in a near-empty Connaught Place during a partial lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus in New Delhi, India (Representational Image) | Prashanth Vishwanathan | Bloomberg

New Delhi: FICCI President Dr. Sangita Reddy on Sunday said that India’s strategy of dealing with the COVID-19 crisis has paid off and the country’s economy is set to bounce back and emerge stronger.

“The speed, virality and impact of the COVID-19 contagion is unprecedented. There was no standard playbook for pandemic management. The dilemma for governments across the world was creating a balance between protecting lives and livelihoods. India took the path of a strict lockdown to ramp up health infrastructure and focused on human lives. This strategy has paid off. Science evolved to give better cures, medical infrastructure was created, supplies like PPEs ramped up and our death rate has been contained,” said Reddy.

She further added that the number of newly reported cases has fallen below 50,000. This indicates that the rate of spread of infection is being contained. Our recovery rate and case fatality ratio are much better compared to similar ratios for many other countries. Our health data points to a healthier destiny. Yet we must continue to educate on prevention and stay vigilant while gearing up for the vaccine.

“It’s clearly time for bold actions on the livelihood front. The recent monetary policy assures that the government and the regulator will do everything it takes to keep the economy afloat. Let us start pushing our growth agenda vigorously,” said Reddy.
Reddy also said as we can see the initial green shoots of recovery have begun. The PMI for Manufacturing and Services has recovered to 56.8 and 49.8 respectively in September 2020.

“There has been a pick-up in e-way bill volumes, improvement in revenue earning freight traffic of major commodities, positive growth in exports and most significantly increase in the September GST collections to almost pre-COVID-19 level. These incremental trends are heartening and need to be sustained, and further initiatives like the consumption vouchers (which was another one of FICCI’s recommendations) must continue to remain focused on demand generation,” she added.