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There have been debates on news channels, articles on the internet and gossip among people about which vaccine the Government of India will provide to us. However, a void can be observed in all debates. Today we will talk about this void.
Everything costs, it might be money, time or labour. Even vaccines and medications cost money. During the Bihar elections, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) promised to distribute free COVID 19 vaccine to everyone. The pandemic has hit us hard and so will in the future. We hope that the virus may abate.
The country is currently suffering from a technical recession. A dearth of money is observable. Several economists said, “India has entered a technical recession in the first half of 2020–21 for the first time in history”. This recession was widely discussed on social media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit. “India’s economy contracted by 7.5% in the July-September quarter following a record slump of 23.9% in the previous three months, pushing the country into a recession for the first time in its history.” said the Hindustan Times newspaper. The question arises how the Government will provide vaccines to every person?
A technical recession is the moment in which there have been two consecutive quarters of negative growth in real GDP of any country.
The Government of India implemented several strategies to recover from this recession and to fulfill the thirst of money in the Government’s treasure. One of the strategies is to increase tax. The GOI increased taxes on petrol and diesel. Hike in petrol prices was bitterly criticised by the common person. Frustration increased due to the strict hike in prices in several products, including petrol and diesel. Along with this, the intolerant unemployment rate is even more horrific. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), unemployment is at 8.3%. On 30 May it was 23%. This abate is appreciable, but still millions of people have lost their jobs. People intelligently fought the pandemic, which might be a reason unemployment got some relief.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently on December 10 laid foundation stones for the new parliament to be built in New Delhi. This comes under the Central Vista project. Around 90 acres of land will be used to rebuild Central Vista, said newslaundry.com. It is interesting to note that the cost of just the parliament and the PM house is Rs. 20,000 crores. For an estimation, construction of IIT Mandi costs about Rs. 1,466 crores. A high quality university with the capacity of 4,000 students costs about Rs. 750 crores. The Prime Minister has directly talked neither to the farmers nor the farm unions. Questions arise if the Central Vista project is necessary amid the recession, pandemic, farmer protests and the anti-CAA protests? It also becomes important to ask if the Government can provide everyone with the COVID 19 vaccine. One may suggest that the GOI can take loans. Yes, India may take loans. India already has an external debt of 563.9 billion US dollars. Even the World Bank lent India one billion US dollars as an “immediate” support to India’s health sector amid the COVID 19 pandemic.
Interestingly, the Bombay Stock Exchange sensex has been rapidly growing since 25 September 2020 which reflects a healthy market.
