In order to understand the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the common people, we made 122 phone calls from June 1 to 5, covering 595 people in the business capital and the second largest city of the state of Odisha – Cuttack. The respondents were from diverse occupations like the autorickshaw driver, pan shop owner, domestic help, fish-meat-vegetable-fruit vendors, grocery shop owners, laundry shop owner, tailor, photocopy shop owner, milkmen, trolley puller, AC mechanic, driver, security guard, construction supervisor, wall-painting labourers, mason, advocate, printing shop owners, daily wage labourer, snack vendors and so on.They came from all major localities of the city. Around one-fifth of the households were of the per capita income class of Rs 727 to Rs 2,222, one-fifth were of the income class of Rs 2,250 to Rs 3,182, one-fifth were of the Rs 3333 to Rs 4,286 bracket, one-fifth were of Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000 and the rest one-fifth were of the per capita income class of Rs 8,333 to Rs 25,000 per month.There were 18 female and 104 male respondents aged between 18 to 75 years. There were 34 families from other backward castes, 8 families from the scheduled castes and 3 families were from the Scheduled Tribes and two families were from Muslim background. The rest 75 families were unreserved Hindus. Twenty three respondents were graduates and 29 of them could not pass the matriculation examination (10th standard). The rest 70 respondents had matriculation or higher secondary (12th standard) pass certificates.Also read: The Lockdown is a Dangerous Experiment, India’s Democracy Will Not Emerge UnscathedThe family sizes varied from two to 11 and the number of earning members in the family, from one to three. There are only nine families with a female earning member in our sample. There is only one family where the only earning member is a female – she works as domestic help and gets Rs 5,800 to run a family of four members. The poorest family in the sample is a family of 11 members with only one 58-year-old male earning member. The average family size is little fewer than five people in our sample. There are 41 families with more than one earning member in our sample of total 122 households.Job loss is the major concern, particularly for the self-employed and casual labourers. Daily wage earners were the worst sufferers due to unavailability of work during the lockdown. Their average monthly income came down to almost zero during April and May. People employed as AC mechanics, wall-painting workers, electricians etc were not engaged by the people due to the fear of getting infected by the coronavirus. Domestic helps’ services were discontinued from middle of March to May beginning and they were not given their full salary in all cases. Street food vendors suffered greatly but some of them managed do some business by doing local deliveries, secretly. Spread of rumours on social media platforms also hampered the business opportunities they had. Chicken sales witnessed a drop during March and April as people stopped consuming chicken in the fear that it carries the virus, in spite of WHO and the Odisha government clarifying that eating chicken is safe. At that point chicken was available at just Rs 20 per kg in most places in Odisha. Also read: The Rumours that Killed the Chicken and the Maize Whereas in the absence of such rumours, fish-sellers did decent business. Masons, trolley pullers, autorickshaw drivers and taxi drivers obviously had no work during the lockdown.The most serious impact of lockdown is the extent of fall in income and its effect on the expenditure pattern of the family. If we look at the ratio of monthly per capita expenditure during lockdown to monthly average per capita income before lockdown for different income classes, we see that the ratio is just 35% for the upper 20% sample households and it is as high as 85% for the bottom 20% sample households (see graph below). It is true that the consumption propensity is relatively higher for the poorer section of population but, it is also true that the poorer people cannot cut down much on their expenditures as they mostly consume essential commodities and services and their consumption expenditure is anyway the subsistence level of expenditures for survival. This will lead to a serious problem when it comes to meeting those essential expenditures in the absence of or fall of income; they have to consume their past savings or have to borrow, making them vulnerable to a debt trap. Source: Telephonic Survey Conducted in Cuttack, June 1 to 3One of the major findings of the study is that people had lost their sense of job security. Only 15 respondents (12% of the sample) have said that their expected average monthly income after lockdown would remain the same. Fifty two respondents have said that they ‘do not know’ and the rest 55 have said that their monthly income is going to be around one-third, on an average. Therefore, there is extreme vulnerability and fear in the minds of people from various occupational backgrounds regarding their future income, even after the lockdown gets over. More than 90% of the respondents have opined that there is an urgent need for employment of last resort programmes (like the MGNREGS) in urban India as well. Importantly, this survey has been conducted in the business capital of a state in India.In such a time of distress, government schemes have not reached the public as expected; 28% people have reported that they have not got any free ration during the lockdown even after two months of announcement of the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY). Only one-fourth of the respondents admitted to having a Jan Dhan account and having received money in it. None of the respondents reported to have got any free gas cylinders during the lockdown. These three promises were made in PMGKY, in concrete terms, in the month of March. So, lack of proper implementation of the announced schemes in the situation of extreme uncertainties and vulnerabilities warrants government attention and intervention. We also enquired about the health issues concerning families and observed that though most of the families did not suffer from major health problems, but the ongoing treatment of existing diseases were seriously affected and compromised. In some cases, people suffering from diabetes, heart diseases, allergies, etc. did not visit the hospital fearing COVID-19 infections. Also, many doctors reportedly refused to attend to patients fearing that they might be infected.Also read: Once Derided by Modi, Boost to MGNREGS Shows it’s One of Rural India’s Few Safety NetsWe asked the people about their expectations from the government. Most of them suggested some kind of employment guarantee (with provision for some unemployment benefits) in the urban areas. They also asked for the economy to be opened with proper safety measures and public sector healthcare facilities in place. Recently, the government of Odisha has announced a complete shutdown on Saturdays and Sundays and many of them are opposed to this idea. There is a demand for credit and cash in hands to restart businesses. There are also demands for subsidising education even in the private schools and some cash transfers to compensate for their income loss due to the lockdown. Initial support for the COVID-19 lockdown and its greater good is withering away due to prolonged lockdown and loss of income. Surajit Das is an assistant professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Madhubrata Rayasingh is an assistant professor of Economics at the National Law University Odisha.The authors are indebted to Samyak Mohanty and Siddharth Anand Panda, fifth year LLB students of NLUO, for their research support.
