Karnataka govt invites experts to offer ideas to mitigate COVID-19 impact

The Karnataka government has invited experts to offer suggestions, new ideas, and suggest projects, strategies and work plans to help it formulate an integrated strategy to mitigate the social and economic impact of COVID-19 and promote a healthy and safe revival of the State.

According to a concept note put out for discussion, a uniform revival policy for the whole state is not possible as the impact on the economy varies across the regions and sectors. The estimation of the impact across the administrative divisions/ districts is essential to frame the redressal policy and programmes, it said.

The Planning Department, with the help of Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES) and Data Analytics Centre and with the help of interns and the faculty support, is trying to design the projects to conduct impact analysis across the divisions on various issues, the concept note said.

What is required is immediate assessment of the current situation and, with new ideas, design short, medium and long-term policies, it said. During the lockdown period,production almost come to a standstill in the state, whose GDP at current prices is estimated (2019-20) at 15,50,297 crore and the average per day works out to be Rs 4300 crore.

It is assumed that the loss would continue for a longer period if the period is extended and even after that, it will require some time for revival. The greatest loss is in service sector which is a major contributor to State GDP (66 per cent) and also to employment (47.44 per cent); the other sector affected is industry/manufacturing contributing 22.8 per cent to State GDP.

The production in agriculture sector is comparatively less affected as Rabi harvesting season is over. But the horticulture, floriculture and allied activities have suffered a great loss due to delink from marketing chain , the concept note said. The contribution of Bangalore Urban to the State economy is about 25 per cent to 30 per cent (very low estimation).

Hence revival of Bangalore urban economy is essential. The Bangalore urban economy is mainly dependent on migrant labour and therefore the revival depends on bringing back the people for work to meet the labour demand. A policy/programme needs to be formulated, it said. A quick survey of migrant workers and workers in informal sector is being taken up by DES (Planning Department) to assess the nature of these migrants and the quantum of job requirements.