NEW DELHI: Ram Babu moved from his village to the Indian capital New Delhi in 1980, to clean cars. Soon, he learned to drive and got a job as a tour bus driver. Decades later, he set up his own company, Madhubani Tours and Travels.
The outbreak of the pandemic triggered the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s and as it gradually ebbs, many economies are bouncing back. The World Bank foresees 5.6 per cent global growth for 2021, the best since 1973.India's economy contracted 7.3 per cent in the fiscal year that ended in March, worsening from a slump that slashed growth to 4 per cent from 8 per cent in the two years before the pandemic hit.
In May 2020, he used one of those buses to drive his wife and three children back to Bhugol village in Bihar, one of India's poorest states. He could no longer afford the rent on their modest one-bedroom apartment in New Delhi. The report defined the middle class as people earning US$10 to US$20 a day. It estimated the number of India's poor - those with incomes of US$2 or less a day - has increased by 75 million because of the crisis.
Economists worry about a longer term decline in salaried jobs, of which 12.5 million remain lost, according to CMIE data, and about the fate of small and medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of India's vast informal economy. Gyms were among the last types of venues allowed to reopen from the 2020 lockdown and they were closed again during the latest outbreaks. The Gautams had been thriving on income from their 100 gym members, making enough to rent their two-story space and pay five trainers. Now, they're relying on whatever they can scrape together from offering online fitness training, and struggling to afford rent and school fees for their two children.
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