India GDP 2020 among G20
Covid 19 has taken toll to the health of people as well as economies across the world. Most of the countries had to lockdown themselves as a measure to contain coronavirus, that has infected over 26 million people around the world, leaving more than 0.86 million dead.
India is facing worst phase in terms of number of Covid infected people and deaths. Also its economy has got major hit among the biggest economies of the world. The devastating state of Indian economy in corona times is reflecting in a recently released global GDP report.
India’s GDP 2020 worst among G20
India’s gross domestic product (GDP) has dropped to 25.6 percent, the lowest among G20 nations in quarter 2 (April-June) of 2020, in comparison to the previous quarter, says a graph shared by International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Economist Gita Gopinath.
Sharing the graph comparing quarter-on-quarter non-annualized GDP, Gopinath said in Great Lockdown, Q2 2020 GDP growth of the G20 countries was at historical lows. She hoped for rebounds in Q3, however, maintained that GDP will see more drop in 2020.
Only Chinese economy showed a strong recovery in Q2 after collapse in Q1, reflected through the data. Meanwhile, India’s year-on-year GDP for April-June quarter slipped 23.9 percent, the first GDP shrunk in four decades. This happened due to intense lockdown across the county, intending to contain Covid pandemic.
Result of confused government policies
Why is Indian economy facing such a shattering condition? The reason is quite obvious. The coronavirus lockdown has taken the economy to the red. The government, its social media handlers and its supporting brigade are continuously defending its policies. And they are making tall claims that Indian economy is rebounding.
Government’s offices may be presenting polished data to show off everything not-so-gloomy with the economy; they cannot hide the data released by the global agencies. The data reflects India GDP’s worst performance among world’s biggest economies, which are going through same pandemic phase as India.
From a too early lockdown decision to an immature unlock move, Indian government’s policies remained totally confusing and ridiculous throughout the Covid crisis so far. The cost of government’s worthless experiments is being paid by the common people, especially vulnerable sections like poor migrant labourers.
Pre-corona wrong decisions done the job
Other thing to notice is that the state of Indian economy has been going worse for over six years now. Un-welcomed demonetization move, unhelpful gross sales tax (GST) policies and uninvited privatization of public companies have collectively done more than half the job. The result of all this is now reflecting in the GDP.
Even in pre-Covid times, the country’s economy already took a dip, when GDP growth in Jan-Mar quarter of 2019-20 slowed down to 3.1 percent, compared to its expansion by 5.7 percent in corresponding quarter of 2018-19. After all these flaws and mishaps done to the economy, failed lockdown has made things worst for country’s GDP.
Failed lockdown gifted the country with daily highest Covid cases and death counts in the world. It also gifted highest unemployment in over 4 decades, more than 12 crore job losses and worst economic performance in the world. This seem to be just beginning as in coming months and years, economic wellbeing is expected to be more affected.
A pandemic never comes alone but with a number of other drastic issues accompanying it. In countries across the world, the current coronavirus crisis is mitigating the decades of progress. In such a situation, recent pre-corona bad policy decisions and current pandemic mismanagement have apparently harmed economy at the worst.
