‘Social unrest’ warning as Modi looks to extend India’s lockdown

NEW DELHI: Key industries are warning of social unrest unless India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes concessions when he announces any extension Tuesday to a three-week pandemic-lockdown for the country’s 1.3 billion people.

The lockdown ends at midnight Tuesday, but several state chief ministers have already said they plan to extend it for at least two more weeks. With time running out, the government has not laid out any national plan.

Modi, who is to make a nationwide address at 0430 GMT Tuesday, is caught between growing fears over the pandemic — cases have surged in recent days to more than 9,150 with 308 deaths — and the need to get the economy moving again.

Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das called the coronavirus an “invisible assassin” that could cause havoc with the economy. The national restaurants association, which said its members employed seven million people, warned Monday there could be “social unrest” if it did not receive financial relief. The government is considering making people stay at home in Delhi, Mumbai and other major cities while opening up rural parts of the country that have so far been relatively untainted by coronavirus, according to some reports.

Media have predicted it would be relaxed for key sectors such as agriculture. With thousands of trucks carrying food and other essential produce being stuck at internal borders, the home ministry has already sent out new orders to states calling for better movement of essentials.

The government has a long list of sectors which want to start work again. The car industry, already hit by the economic slowdown, has been pressing to reopen factories.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus outbreak has led Indians to hoard groceries, essentials and cash. The “currency with public” in the country reached a record high of Rs23.41 lakh crore ($310 billion) for financial year 2020, according to central bank data examined by the Indian Express newspaper on April 13. This is a 14% increase from the previous financial year.

In March alone, cash in the hands of Indians jumped by Rs86,000 crore. The cash withdrawn from banks and ATMs in the month was four times the monthly average recorded last financial year, the Indian Express reported.

The correlation between the cash hoarding and the COVID-19 pandemic was evident in the last two weeks of March.