'Indian economy to bounce back, emerge stronger post COVID': FICCI President Sangita Reddy

As India is better posed in its fight against COVID-19, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) President Dr Sangita Reddy on Sunday said that the Indian economy is set to bounce back and emerge stronger as the country's strategy of dealing with the COVID-19 crisis has paid off even as there was no standard playbook to follow.

"The speed, virality and impact of the COVID-19 contagion is unprecedented. There was no standard playbook for pandemic management. The dilemma for governments across the world was creating a balance between protecting lives and livelihoods. India took the path of a strict lockdown to ramp up health infrastructure and focused on human lives. This strategy has paid off. Science evolved to give better cures, medical infrastructure was created, supplies like PPEs ramped up and our death rate has been contained," said Reddy.

She also pointed out the dramatic fall in the daily new caseload of COVID-19 infections in the country, adding that India's recovery rate and case fatality ratio is much better compared to many other countries. "Our health data points to a healthier destiny. Yet we must continue to educate on prevention and stay vigilant while gearing up for the vaccine," she contended.

"It's clearly time for bold actions on the livelihood front. The recent monetary policy assures that the government and the regulator will do everything it takes to keep the economy afloat. Let us start pushing our growth agenda vigorously," said Reddy.

"There has been a pick-up in e-way bill volumes, improvement in revenue earning freight traffic of major commodities, positive growth in exports and most significantly an increase in the September GST collections to almost pre-COVID-19 level. These incremental trends are heartening and need to be sustained, and further initiatives like the consumption vouchers (which was another one of FICCI's recommendations) must continue to remain focused on demand generation," she added.

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India's fight against COVID-19

Active cases of COVID-19 in India remained below 6 lakh for the third consecutive day, comprising only 6.97 per cent of the total caseload, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday. The active cases have dropped to only 6.97 per cent of the total cases of the country demonstrating a steady falling percentage of the total cases, the ministry stated.

India has reported 46,964 cases and 470 new deaths in 24 hours on Sunday. The daily new caseload which had once reached over 95,000 cases has drastically dropped to below 50,000 new COVID-19 cases. Also, the country's recovery rate has surpassed 90 per cent on Wednesday and currently, the recovery rate stands at 91.53 per cent, while the fatality rate is a minimal 1.49 per cent.

India has also conducted COVID-19 tests across the country on a massive scale. The country has conducted nearly 11 crore COVID-19 tests in mission mode with more than 10 lakh tests on an average in the past month. On Sunday, ICMR has reported that 10,91,239 tests were conducted in 24 hours.

India's COVID-19 tally stands at  81,84,083 cases of which 5,70,458 are active cases and 1,22,111 have succumbed to the virus, while a massive number of 74,91,513 cases have recovered.

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