Poll: Broad contours of the recovery road

A few days after the June GDP numbers made clear the extent of Covid's economic devastation, ET Online ran a survey to find out how some of India's best-informed readers of business news viewed the current state of affairs. Over four days, the survey drew more than 16,000 responses.According to well over a third (36.5%) of the survey participants, the Indian economy has not yet seen the full extent of virus decimation. An almost equal number, however, are of the opinion that the worst is over.It is fear and lockdowns that are hurting the economy more than any other factor, said a whopping 45.1% of respondents. This is a significant departure from a similar survey carried out a little while ago which saw respondents pin the most blame on Covid-induced supply disruptions and the broken labour market. 78009512The case for drastic lockdownsDid India really need the sweeping closure of all businesses for months, especially at a time when the economy was already having a hard time? While a debate over this risk-return tradeoff continues to divide people, more than a third of survey respondents said Modi govt had no other options but impose lockdowns. Those who thought Modi's lockdowns hurt more than they helped, were offset by an equal number of respondents (each group at around 28%) who said these drastic measures were necessary regardless of the consequences.To give the ravaged economy a fighting chance, economists have been pushing for either a Stimulus 2.0, or a reopening with no conditions attached, or direct doles to weaker sections. In this survey though, most participants (44.5%) batted for a sentiment boost to the middle class, the mainstay of India's consumption-dependent growth story.While our survey questions hadn't explicitly marked out the likely nature of such a boost, the fact that there is a crying need for the govt to give middle India some tax breather was not lost on anyone.The lack of backing for money transfer to the weaker sections came as a bit of an eye-opener. Many frontline economists and policymakers see this as one of the best ways to jumpstart rural India, which they say will eventually trigger a positive cascade effect for all of the country. But in our survey, just 14.5% of the participants saw it as a significant factor.A ringing endorsementEven though India's policy response to the pandemic has so far fallen short on most counts, our survey showed a ringing endorsement of Modi govt's handling of the crisis. As many as 45.9% participants were all praise for the government for "doing all it can". The detractors of the govt — those who felt that a plan looked missing — came a distant second at just under 25%.Those who thought that Modi govt "has not done enough" (13.4%) and that Modi's measures were "arbitrary, hit-and-miss" (16%) were even smaller in number. 78009524Regarding a question related to the likelihood and speed of an economic recovery, two distinct patterns were observed — as many as 34.5% of the respondents said they felt that the worst was already over and that better days were ahead, while a slightly larger chunk (39.6%0 said that a recovery would be long and hard.Those who thought 2020-21 was wholly wasted constituted a 17.1% chunk. Some of them (just under 9%) took economic pessimism to another level altogether, saying there was not much hope for 2021-22 either.A majority of those (42.2%) who foresaw a recovery being hard attributed it to the lack of Centre-state cohesion in tackling the virus menace. 24.5% pointed to over-dependence on consumption, a long-held typicality of Indian economy. Just under 20% of the respondents said that the govt's one-size-fits-all response was to blame.On the question of the worsening feud over GST, the survey responses sent out no clear message. Just over 8% said the states were really being shortchanged as alleged. Almost equal chunks of respondents thought that the Centre's hands were tied (33.1%), that it was the need of the hour for states to borrow (30.1%), and that the Centre's actions are against the spirits of the GST deal (28.5%).Border battle report cardNot just in his steering the economy amid the virus, Modi's actions found ample backers in another key area too. As many as 43.8% respondents expressed wholehearted satisfaction over Modi govt's response to the recent bouts of Chinese border aggression. A huge chunk (just under 40%) of them thought it was possible for India to sever all business links with China without much consequence. 78009530However, Modi govt's handling of the China issue was not without its share of detractors. As many as 24.3% participants thought India's response was "more rhetoric, less action". Additionally, almost 22% of people were of the view that pulling off a complete decoupling from China would be hardly possible owing to the deep business interlinkages.This was the survey:ET Online Mood of the Nation survey: Picking up the pieces after Covid wipeout

from Economic Times https://bit.ly/3k2p3jA
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