Economic Lockdowns and Challenges of Rural Livelihood: Indian Scenario

Mandal, Sujit

India is severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, with the number of confirmed cases and death cases increase at an alarming rate. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns affected commercial establishments, education, entertainment, industry, tourism, transport, agriculture, migrants, unemployment, food security, GDP, and recession of the country’s economy. Lockdowns in different phases caused a sharp rising of unemployment, stress on supply chains, and the poor’s livelihood challenges in India. The present study will address the present situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns, and its response to migrant workers, smallholder farmers, the landless workers, and daily wage labourers from the informal sectors and their livelihood crisis. The livelihood crisis differs from one region to another due to regional differences in resource endowment, unemployment, and agrarian distress in India. About 91% of the total of 465 million workers are engaged in informal sectors in India. In India, severely COVID-19 mostly affected states are Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Karnataka. Out of 739 districts in India, 139 reported a large number of confirmed cases, 300 reported only a few cases, and 300 districts are not affected by COVID-19. Already lockdowns have created much pressure on the Indian economy and invited livelihood challenges to rural poor. The prolonged lockdowns may further cause the country’s income erosion and may push the poor into extreme livelihood crises and poverty.