Covid-19 recovery: Data is telling an interesting tale

The Deepavali crackers whooshing, spinning and bursting seemed to belie the overall gloom of an erosion of economic well-being in India—not only is there money with people, there is money to celebrate. Data from the Reserve Bank of India on household savings is saying something similar—household savings more than doubled in the first quarter this year against last year Indicators on manufacturing and services are doing better, goods and services tax collections hit the psychologically important ₹1 trillion mark in October. The stock market is on a liquidity plus sentiment fuelled rush, shaking off the March’s fear-fuelled crash, and is now at a lifetime high, gaining almost 70% from the year’s low. Swift Rebound But listen to individual stories around you and you see distress—most troublingly captured by the suicide of a poor small-town aspirant, whose parents could not meet the cost of big-city education. India is seeing a massive creative destruction where the dead wood is getting removed from workplaces, real estate costs are getting rationalized as work from home becomes more the norm than the exception, and with the understanding that India simply does not have the public finances to support a UK or France-type handouts to citizens, it is every family, community and friends’ circle for themselves.