Revised guidelines should be seen as an experiment to gradually restart economic activities: CARE

 Bhubaneswar: Though the revised guidelines issued by the union government has provided relief to sectors like Agriculture and essential goods and services, experts say its impact on GDP will be limited. However, these steps should be looked at as an experiment in order to gradually restart economic activities.

“The guidelines do not mean much for GDP growth during the current fiscal. Agriculture services and manufacturing of essential goods would continue to drive GDP growth amidst the lockdown while absence of key services sector could have a bearing on GDP growth” estimated Care Ratings and Research in a report.

“The second set of lockdown guidelines from the Ministry of Home Affairs should be looked at as an experiment in order to ease public hardships and gradually restart economic activities throughout the country while continuously working towards flattening the curve of the confirmed cases” it read.

Opening up of delivery of essential goods via E-commerce channels is positive for the E-commerce sector.  The services sectors have no provisions to benefit from and will be the last ones to receive the same. Transportation services (like railway, aviation), education services, leisure, hospitality and entertainment services could be the last ones to be removed from the lockdown restrictions.

The report further added that, agriculture and manufacturing of essential goods will benefit the most from the revised guidelines. This has to be looked at in line with opening up of APMC markets, free movement of essential goods, ration shops to remain open and no restriction on opening up of the establishments for manufacturing the essential goods.