Rahul Gandhi, the former President of the Indian National Congress (INC) and Raghuram Rajan, the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, discussed the economic situation during the pandemic illness.
Rahul Gandhi, in an attempt to get answers for some questions related to the economic crisis during the lockdown due to the pandemic Coronavirus illness, interacted with Mr. Rajan.
During this meeting on the 30th of April, Rahul Gandhi said, “I thought an interesting way to answer some of those questions would be to have a conversation with you (Raghuram Rajan.)”
Mr. Gandhi asked whether India could use some strategic changes to deal with the economic crisis after the pandemic situation gets better.
In response, Mr. Rajan said such pandemic crises like COVID-19 usually never leave anything positive and result in a huge recession and crisis globally.
Raghuram Rajan said, “There will have to be a rethinking of everything in the global economy once we are out of this. If there is an opportunity for India, it is in shaping that dialogue and in being the leader in that dialogue. India is not one of the warring parties but a country big enough to have its voice heard in the global economy.”
While many states are thinking to go for a third lockdown, many are concerned about the worse economic conditions due to the shut down. Highlighting the consequences of another lockdown, Mr. Rajan said, “Second or third lockdown will be devastating. It does diminish our credibility. We don’t have to aim for 100 % success – it is not possible too – we have to manage the reopening.”
Mr. Rajan said India is not in a state to continue the lockdown for long, as it does not have the capacity to feed people for long. Mr. Rajan said, “India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is at Rs 200 lakh crore, so we can afford Rs 65,000 crore to save the livelihood of India’s poor.”
Speaking about the need for private jobs, Raghuram Rajan said India needs to create good quality jobs, so dependency on government jobs would be less.
The ex Governor of RBI said India needs to lift the lockdown in a phased manner. The lockdown has impacted small businessmen, factories, industries and daily wages labourers. The nation wide lockdown which was imposed as a precautionary measure would continue till the 3rd of May.
However, many states are planning to extend the lockdown to contain the spread of the Novel Coronavirus, which infected 33,184 people and claimed 1,081 lives till date in India.
