Economic Survey of India: 2020 – 21

The year 2020 threw at the world a bedlam of novel COVID-19 virus, threatening all that was taken for granted –mobility, safety, and a normal life itself. This, in turn, posed the most formidable economic challenge to India and to the world in a century. Bereft of a cure or a vaccine, public health policy became central to tackling this all-pervasive crisis. The imperative of flattening the disease curve was entwined with the livelihood cost of an imminent recession, which emanated from the restrictions in economic activities from the lockdown required to contain the pandemic. This inherent trade-off led to the policy dilemma of “lives versus livelihoods”