Lockdown to push 49 mn into poverty
Abdul Kareem was forced out of school and into a life of odd jobs like repairing bicycles before he finally managed to pull his family out of abject poverty transporting goods across the Indian capital in a mini truck.
The job, and the slim financial security that came with it, was the first stepping stone to a better life.
All that is now gone as India reels under the economic impact of its protracted coronavirus lockdown. Kareem’s out of a job and stranded in his village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh with his wife and two children. Their minuscule savings from his ₹9,000 a month job have been exhausted, and the money he saved for books and school uniforms is spent.
“I don’t know what the job situation will be in Delhi once we go back,” Kareem said. “We can’t stay hungry so I will do whatever I find.”
At least 49 million people across the world are expected to plunge into “extreme poverty”— those living on less than $1.90 per day—as a direct result of the pandemic’s economic destruction and India leads that projection, with the World Bank estimating some 12 million of its citizens will be pushed to the very margins this year.
Some 122 million Indians were forced out of jobs last month alone, according to estimates from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a private sector think tank. Daily wage workers and those employed by small businesses
WORLD BANK ESTIMATES 12 MILLION OF INDIA’S CITIZENS WILL BE PUSHED TO THE VERY MARGINS THIS YEAR
have taken the worst hit. These include hawkers, roadside vendors, workers employed in the construction industry and many who eke out a living by pushing handcarts and rickshaws.
“Much of the Indian government’s efforts to mitigate poverty over the years could be negated in a matter of just a few months,” said Ashwajit Singh, managing director of IPE Global, a development sector consultancy that advises several multinational aid agencies.
Noting that he did not expect unemployment rates to improve this year, Singh said: “More people could die from hunger than the virus.”
DESPERATE TIMES
Singh points to a United Nations University study estimating 104 million Indians could fall below the World Bank-determined poverty line of $3.2 a day for lowermiddle-income countries.
This will take the proportion of people living in poverty from 60%—or 812 million currently, to 68% or 920 million—a situation last seen in the country more than a decade ago, Singh said.
A World Bank report found India had been making significant progress and was close to losing its status as the country with the most poor citizens. The impact of the lockdown risks reversing those gains.