Why rural resurgence matters

With rural demand driving growth in many Indian industries, interventions aimed at jump-starting agrarian activities will play a key role in the country's economic revival

The government’s decision to enact a nationwide lockdown (from March 25) to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic ignited a debate on the trade-offs between saving lives and protecting livelihoods. The pandemic has jeopardised economic activity, and has disproportionately affected the employment and income of daily wage earners in urban centres (mostly rural out-migrants) and rural farmers. The growing inter-connectedness between India’s urban and rural economies has meant that the headwinds and tailwinds impacting the former have had a congruent impact on the latter as well. The latest figures on rural and urban unemployment are instructive. 

As per the Centre for Monitoring the