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By Eric Bellman and Vibhuti Agarwal NEW DELHI India s economy, one of the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, started growing again last quarter, but the recovery is being driven by those with the highest incomes, while the poor are still struggling. The country s gross domestic product grew by 0.4% in the three months through Dec. 31, driven by India s biggest companies and richest consumers. They emerged from the worst of the Covid-19 crisis last year with more savings and lower costs, and are now lifting growth as the spread of the virus slows. But the millions of small family businesses and farms that employ more than 80% of the populace and make up the informal economy have had the opposite experience. Its businesses and consumers have had to dip into savings and seen demand disappear, said Mahesh Vyas, chief executive for the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, an independent think tank in Mumbai.
A tale of two methodologies: Which dataset captures the real picture of the labour market?
Synopsis
As the survey methodologies are different for PLFS and CMIE, it is useful to compare the datasets and undertake some simple smell tests.
For an evidence-based policy, high frequency, timely, accurate and granular data are critical. The two main sources of employment data for the Economic Survey are the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) by the National Statistical Office (NSO) and the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). While the PLFS quarterly survey, launched in April 2017, covers the urban sector, the CPHS data’s
Indian homes hopeful of a turnaround, reveals CMIE s consumer index
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CMIE is of the view that the sustenance of recovery is best achieved when households feel positive of their well-being. “India’s vast consumer markets need to feel like spending beyond their essential requirements for the economy to pick pace beyond the recovery,” it said.
Agencies
The higher growth in consumer expectation index is a reflection of rising confidence of Indian households and is vital to sustain the economic recovery, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy said, suggesting there is a need to further build up this confidence.
We must intervene to fight off a crisis of hunger and malnutrition
Hundreds of children suffer from acute severe malnutrition because of poverty and grinding conflict
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Much attention paid to the pandemic’s harm may have been focused on economic growth, but a far more serious challenge that India is likely to face relates to hunger and malnutrition. While concrete nationally-representative data is unlikely to be available soon, several privately-conducted surveys after covid suggest that the situation is far worse than thought. Data on consumption expenditure and malnutrition also point to a reversal of earlier gains made against malnutrition and hunger. Unlike economic growth, which is likely to rebound to a respectable annual rate of 6-7%, the long-term impact of India’s retrogression on those two indicators can prove severe enough to affect other human development outcomes.
New Delhi, Feb 24: Several dying small scale industries in India are looking at a comeback with Prime Minister Narendra Modis thrust on Aatmanirbhar Bharat that also focuses on import reduction. Sentiments are also rapidly changing as the .