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Government should assure financial stability to self-employed people

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Traders protest lockdown
Image Courtesy: PTI

Maharashtra government may impose lockdown by defining areas as red, green and orange based on the level of infection in that particular area. Total lockdown means no work, shops, beauty parlours; salons, gym and many more establishments would remain closed. Some IT companies and private firms yet to recover from backlash are paying half salaries to their employees now would be shut permanently. Private sectors have another challenge.

The Common public feel that the Lockdown is not a good measure, maybe for a few days it is fine but frequent lockdown has its repercussions. More difficult it would be to cope up with the general public. All commercial and economic activity should be resumed with rules and regulations. Mask wearing; maintaining social distancing and isolation far as possible should be followed.

Only sitting at home with no earnings is not fair. People even require money to fight coronavirus as well as their lives ahead. For example, one small cobbler or a beautician, they are fetching their livings and also paying GST to all other taxes to the government, without making any financial obligations.

These people are huge in numbers, they earn and save in banks and in the end banks are emptied by governments. Also, these are the people who have suffered huge losses during the corona lockdown. They can’t take another pinch to their pocket. Government has no planning for rendering hands to such sectors.

No plans for regulating small self-sustaining, business groups and self-employed people. Just by saying the Indian economy is fine, how can anyone assure financial stability to these people? It’s more than individual states, the centre should tell people of India how they are going to give hands to all after lockdown.

We should lock down the Corona, not ourselves. Are the doctors and nurses locking themselves down? What about the vegetable vendor? What about the police? There are many such entities working 24/7 knowing the threat, but they are taking precautions too. The central government’s job is to take care of people who are suffering from day one ever since BJP won elections.

In the month of May 2019, it was demonetization and sudden closures of banks, thereafter GST and other slabs followed by ten long month’s lockdown. Middle-class families are suffering from all sides. The government is passing the economic burden heavily on the salaried class people to fight the Corona pandemic by freezing the DA and deducting one day of salary per month till March 2021.

No country in the world has done this so far. Many small businesses are shut due to lockdown. They are unable to afford to pay salaries. They are randomly firing all employees. This is what is happening and if lockdown is imposed again people will die of starvation.

Almost all small businesses are at risk of collapsing, if businesses collapse, they won’t be able to ensure our economy can get better. These small businesses will be lost forever. Permitted non-essential goods to be transported but due to lack of truck drivers and manpower the entire market is still. A good chunk of the economy is still locked out.

Mining is mostly closed. Construction is totally stopped. Most factories that produce automobiles, machinery, consumer durables and so on are shuttered. Millions of small factories and enterprises are non-functional. Almost all of the retail trade, transport, travel and hospitality businesses are down and out.

Their workers are suddenly out of job. More than 2/3rd of the production system has either stopped production totally or scaled down substantially. On average, about 8-9 per cent of GDP is produced in a month.

The measures to save human lives from the COVID-19 epidemic can result in making the economy a casualty – making both the nation and her people poor. If the COVID-19 risk to the economy is not managed properly, India might see crores of people becoming jobless and fall back into poverty.


(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us at feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)

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Vaidehi Taman
Vaidehi Tamanhttps://authorvaidehi.com
Vaidehi Taman an Accredited Journalist from Maharashtra is bestowed with three Honourary Doctorate in Journalism. Vaidehi has been an active journalist for the past 21 years, and is also the founding editor of an English daily tabloid – Afternoon Voice, a Marathi web portal – Mumbai Manoos, and The Democracy digital video news portal is her brain child. Vaidehi has three books in her name, "Sikhism vs Sickism", "Life Beyond Complications" and "Vedanti". She is an EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker, OSCP offensive securities, Certified Security Analyst and Licensed Penetration Tester that caters to her freelance jobs.
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