UNLOCK 1.0

The lockdown is slowly getting withdrawn in India. It was extremely necessary to impose the lockdown, but somewhere during saving lives, the challenges we got in return of it were predictable as well as drastic.

In such a critical time, it is morally incorrect to blame the government because lockdown was the only way to stop the densely populated country from mass infection of COVID-19.

BENEFITS OF LOCKDOWN

Medical aspect

According to the experts and doctors, the hospitals and administration were able to utilise the resources for protecting the people from Coronavirus infection. AICTE Director recently said that the hospitals were able to arrange the beds, PPE kits, techniques like Plasma Therapy, and many other experiments were done in the midst of lockdown.

Environmental aspect

Due to less usage of vehicles, fuels, closed factories, industries, and airports, pollution has been reduced to a large extent. Not only in India but in the whole world, the climatic condition has seen positive results.

Meanwhile, there was heavy rainfall and floods in Northwest India. A cyclone was about to hit the western coast of India but fortunately, it didn't cause that much damage in Mumbai and islands of Gujarat. These circumstances were already predicted and recovered up to some extents.

CONSEQUENCES OF LOCKDOWN

Economical aspect

Before the lockdown, the situation of the Indian economy was worst among the last 5-10 years. The Global pandemic has disturbed the economy of superpower countries. Although the lockdown was critically the right decision, yet the management failed in some states badly.

In the mid-April month, the states lacked funds to continue the activities. As the government may or may not be the same as that in central, some states didn't get the proper help. Due to forceful circumstances, some states opened liquor shops in the month of May to collect the Excise tax. This is an extreme failure of management because the norms of social distancing were not followed at the Liquor shops.

The withdrawal of lockdown is because states are not financially stable. Not only Excise but the collection of GST, VAT (Value Added Tax), fuel tax, vehicle tax, etc. became necessary to run the states.

Impact on education and employment

The educational institutes like schools, colleges, coaching institutes and so on were closed. Even though working through online, the students are not sure about the future. The complete removal of lockdown is still unpredictable and the amount of stress and insecurity is high because some colleges are forcing the exams and demanding fees which are inappropriate moves.

Many companies closed down completely, causing a lot of workers to become unemployed. No new jobs are there, and even the secured jobs are in trouble.

WHAT ABOUT UNLOCK 1.0?

As mentioned earlier, the motive is to take the economy back on track. But it caused a drastic increase in COVID-19 cases in India. Till now, the total cases are almost 3,00,000. 

The only good thing is that the recovery rate is around 49%. But at places like Gujarat, the death rates are high. It is important to look into some drawbacks as the government will not be imposing the strict lockdown again. The active cases are around 1,40,000 in the country and that is a big reason to worry because the colleges are yet to open.

We as responsible citizens should understand the importance of taking the precautions and follow the guidelines properly. In addition, we should work hard at this bad time. Our ignorance can cost the lives of many. It is our responsibility to educate others and help the corona warriors.

The economy will slightly go up with time because at present maximum people are running out of money. They are stuck at home and are clueless. But somehow, the situation is slowly being improved because in some time the travelling will resume and it would restart the proceedings and the dynamics of the normal life would be maintained.

Thank you for reading. Take care.