Pessimism on the rise: Consumer sentiment weakens in April amid Covid surge

Consumer sentiments have been battered particularly badly during the last three weeks

The raging second wave of Covid-19 has had an adverse impact on household sentiments. It couldn’t have been otherwise. There is widespread anguish. This is spilling over into anxiety regarding the long-term wellbeing of hous­eholds. Infections, scarcities, fear and even deaths are rampant. Science has delivered vaccines but India fell short of delivering these or providing other more or­di­nary medical services to the millions that got infected. Household sentiments and expectations were bound to get clouded.

Consumer sentiments have been particularly battered during the last three weeks. The index of consumer sentiments fell by 4.3 per cent in the week ended