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APRIL 27, 2020 `60 www.indiatoday.in

KERALA AHEAD OF THE CURVE THE TESTING GAP

HOW TO MAKE IT WORKSTRATEGY

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 �INDIA TODAY �3Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

As the deadly coronavirus rages across the world, it has put many facets of a country to test—its medical infrastructure, its economy, its social security net, the discipline of its people and the nature of its polity. Most

importantly, it has tested the mettle of its leaders. The president of one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world—the idiosyncratic Donald Trump—has been floundering, with disastrous consequences. He was first in denial of the crisis, then he acted too late, causing confusion with dubious medical advice, quarrelling with state governors over jurisdiction, seeming more interested in reviving the economy than in saving lives and, in a final piece de resistance, withdrawing funding from the World Health Organization. No wonder, the US is the worst hit in terms of cases and deaths. There was also British prime minister Boris Johnson, who meandered around the crisis before taking ac-tion, and ended up being afflicted himself. Then there have been exemplary leaders like French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel, who have demon-strated firm resolve in the face of the crisis.

In a sense, their choices were much easier than those before India’s prime minister. They are leaders of developed countries which have excellent medical facilities and an enviable social welfare system. Naren-dra Modi, on the other hand, has to bal-ance not just lives and livelihoods but also lives versus lives, considering the country’s precarious financial state; 269 million, or 21 per cent of the country’s people, live below the poverty line, and will be pushed down even further if the lockdown continues endlessly.

It could not have been easy for him, therefore, to announce, on April 14, that the lockdown was being extended by another 19 days. But Narendra Modi did it with conviction, combining firmness with optimism. It was also a collaborative rather than a unilateral decision as several chief ministers, all battling spikes in CO-VID-19 cases in their respective states, favoured an extension of the lockdown. History will be the better judge of this decision, but there is no disputing the necessity of the lockdown. A study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) estimates that if even one person is not isolated, he or she can infect 406 people in 30 days. At the end of the first phase of the lockdown, India reported 12,338 infections and 420 deaths. Testing remains a big issue. The slow pick-up in testing means we don’t have enough data to accu-rately predict if we have achieved what we set out to do on March 24—break the chain of infections and arrest community spread of the disease. India’s rate of testing as on April 16 was an abysmal 196 per million. To reach South Korea’s level of testing (10,550 per million), we need to test 13.9 million people, and to match the UK’s 4,750 per million, we need to test around 6 million people as against the mere 258,730 individuals who had been tested till April 16. Clearly, we have a long way to go. For, unless we know the size of the problem, we won’t know how to manage it. It is a race against time, as the disease spreads like wildfire. Worse, there is a worldwide shortage of testing kits and expertise.

There is no one playbook in the fight against the virus. Different countries have to fight it differently. South Korea, for ins tance, chose aggressive testing over a complete lockdown. It tested a quarter of its population in six weeks and invested in new forms

of treatment. The US did not go for a lockdown either, but it was, until recently, complacent about its strategy. South Korea has lost 229 persons to the disease so far, the US, over 28,000. Spain and Italy also locked down late, and the death toll in these countries too has been punishing. Complacency, clearly, is not an option. These are things India must keep in mind as it reopens for business on May 4. But it should also remember that it is a poor country which cannot afford an indefinite lockdown.

The costs to the Indian economy are already staggering. Industry bodies and analysts estimate the world’s big-gest lockdown is costing the country $26 billion or Rs 2 lakh crore per work week, and there is every likeli-

hood that we may not grow at all this financial year. It is, there-fore, imperative for the government to restart the economy. The process has begun, with the home ministry issuing guidelines allowing agricultural and MSME operations, transportation of goods without distinction and resumption of manufacturing in

industries with access control.The government seems to have opted for a gradual

recovery rather than a sudden restart for various reasons. There is no demand, so it doesn’t make sense to run major industries. The second priority is to get the economy back on track while ensuring there is no resurgence of the disease. The government has, therefore, identified ‘hotspots’, or districts with high incidence of COVID-19, for focused attention. A vital

element of this strategy will be testing and the use of technology to track and treat the infected. With Lock-

down 2.0, the government has given itself some breathing space to enhance medical infrastructure and help the needy.

These are some of the key aspects of the exit plan that our cover package analyses. The lead story, by Group Editorial Director (Publishing) Raj Chengappa, examines what’s behind the strategy and the imperatives ahead. Associate Editor Sonali Acharjee focuses on the critical aspect of testing. Deputy Editor Amarnath K. Menon looks at the strategy to manage the hotspots while Deputy Editor Shwweta Punj assesses whether the new guidelines expected after April 20 will be enough to revive the vital MSME sector. MAIL TODAY photo editor Pankaj Nangia, meanwhile, takes us to the frontlines of the war—inside the intensive care unit of a designated COVID-19 hospital in Delhi.

Tough times call for tough measures. The lockdown will conti-nue. There will be hiccups in getting the economy back on the rails. At the same time, the disease and death will have to be kept in check. It is, no doubt, a long haul. But with a proactive government and clear-headed leadership, coupled with the enterprise and forti-tude of its people, India, I firmly believe, will overcome this crisis.

(Aroon Purie)

FROM THE

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

P.S.: In this crisis, authentic information is your best weapon. We at INDIA TODAY remain committed to bringing you clarity and correct information. A PDF version of this issue is available free on www.indiatoday.in/emag or www.indiatoday.in/magzter. We also bring you daily Insights on India’s response to the crisis. Log in to www.indiatoday.in/india-today-magazine-insight.

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With the COVID-19 epidemic still raging, an extension of the national lockdown was inevitable. But how long can the paralysis be sustained? INDIA TODAY looks at the road ahead

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www.indiatoday.in

GAPS IN DETECTION

BEATING THE VIRUS

THE LINE OF COVID CONTROL

SAVING SMALL BUSINESSES

T E S T I N G

K E R A L A M O D E L

H O T S P O T S

M S M E S

India’s testing strategy leaves much to be desired, even as it struggles to procure test kits and accurately assess the disease’s spread

The southern state’s crisis management and fabled healthcare system have been invaluable in the battle against COVID-19

The country’s ‘hotspots’ are a key point of focus in the Centre’s strategy to rein in the virus during the extended lockdown period

MSMEs are the lifeblood of the Indian economy. This sector needs much more support to survive the lockdown

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A PR I L 2 7, 2020 INDIA TODAY 5

B U I L D I N G A P O ST- C OV I D R E A L I T Y PG 8

A C R I S I S T H AT C U T S T O T H E

B O N E PG 10UPFRONT

In his April 14 address that announced the extension of the coronavirus lockdown till May 3, Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi appealed to Indians to follow a seven-pronged

strategy to combat the pandemic. One of the measures was to download the Aarogya Setu contact-tracing app. The app, conceived by NITI Aayog, has been developed in two weeks by the National Informatics Centre in collaboration with the developers of makemytrip.com and 1mg.com.

Aarogya Setu is designed on the premise that if two mobile phones are within Bluetooth range of each other, their users are potentially close enough to transmit the novel coronavirus to one another. Since its launch on April 2, the app, which is available in 11 Indian languages, has registered nearly 50 million downloads. A World Bank report released on April 12 says innovative solutions like the Aarogya Setu could greatly help track contagious diseases while a Uni-versity of Oxford study considers digital contact-tracing as effective, provided there is widespread adoption.

Despite such praise, Aarogya Setu has attracted criti-cism over privacy issues as it seeks users’ personal infor-mation, such as name, age, sex, profession and countries visited in the past 30 days. Every 15 minutes, it collects data about the user’s location and the places the user

A A RO G YA S E T U

THE ‘LONG ARM’ OF AN APPBy Kaushik Deka

I l lustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

6 �INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

visits. According to the app’s terms of service, personal information and location data are securely stored on the mobile device. The information is uploaded to a central server only when a user tests positive for COVID-19 or a self-assessment of symptoms indi-cates the possibility of infection.

While uploading to the server, the information is hashed with a unique, randomly

generated device ID (DiD) number, which is used to identify the user in all subsequent app-related activi-ties. “The DiD is reconnected to the personal information only when the user’s risk of infection is so high that the government needs to tell the person to get tested,” says Rahul Mat-than, a cyber-law expert consulted by the Union government during the development of the app.

When two registered users come within each other’s Bluetooth range, their apps automatically exchange DiDs and information about where the contact happened and for what duration. Every phone builds a log of every other phone in its close proxim-ity, thereby creating a social chain of people a user has come in contact with. If such a user tests positive for COVID-19, the system alerts all those who came in close proximity of the person. Such users are advised to quarantine themselves and, should they develop symptoms, get tested. Like Aarogya Setu user Aarti Singh (name changed) from Delhi, who received an alert when a buyer at a grocery store she had been to tested positive. “The app sent me an alert because it had recorded my location,” says the 42-year-old architect. To Singh’s relief, her RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reac-tion) test turned out to be negative.

Cyber security experts claim contact-tracing apps in other coun-tries, such as Singapore and Israel, are not so intrusive. Singapore’s Trace-Together app requires only the user’s mobile number. Data is transferred to a central server only after a COVID-positive user grants consent. The

TraceTogether app doesn’t collect location data either.

In its guidelines on using technol-ogy to combat COVID-19, the Euro-pean Commission has advised against processing data on location or move-ment of individuals. Aarogya Setu asks for GPS location even though this has no role in contact-tracing. “Location data will not be used for surveillance,” says NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant. “It is used only for hotspots or where more testing is required. The identity of a COVID-19 person will never be revealed to anyone.”

The app’s privacy policy states that the information is uploaded to a cloud server in anonymised and aggregated datasets only “for the purpose of gen-erating reports, heat maps and other statistical visualisations”. Critics, how-ever, argue that it is unclear as to what the government views as ‘anonymised’. In a detailed report on contact-tracing apps, New Delhi-based NGO Inter-net Freedom Foundation (IFF) has flagged the app’s shortcomings in terms of data collection and storage, purpose limitation and transparency. The app’s privacy policy states that information will be purged from the phone after 30 days and from the server after 45 days if the user does not test COVID-positive in that period. Information about users who test pos-itive will be purged 60 days after they have been declared cured. However, personal data collected while register-ing with the app will be retained till the account exists and, thereafter, “as long as required under any law in force for the time being”. Nowhere in the policy, though, is the legal requirement for this defined.

“Users have no way of checking if the government has deleted the data. They should have a judicial remedy to hold the government account-

Similar apps in other countries are less intrusive. Singapore’s TraceTogether app requires only the user’s mobile number and does not record location data

UPFRONT

HOW AAROGYA SETU WORKST

he Aarogya Setu contact-tracing app is a key resource ad-

dition in India’s fight against COVID-19, garnering nearly 50 million downloads in less than a fortnight besides praise in a World Bank report. Its de-sign, however, has raised the hackles of privacy advocates and cybersecurity experts, who feel the app seeks too much personal information. They are not convinced by the official assertion that only data of COVID-positive users is uploaded to the central server—in anonymised form—and purged 60 days after such users have been declared cured.

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 �INDIA TODAY �7

able,” says Sidharth Deb, policy and parliamentary counsel at IFF. The other sore point is that the liability clause exempts the government in the event of unauthorised access and modification of a user’s infor-mation. Kant allays such fears. “The government will not use the data gathered by the app for any purpose other than COVID-19 medical examination,” he asserts.

While the personal informa-tion collected cannot be disclosed or transferred to a third party, critics point out that since the privacy policy does not specify which government department owns the data, it remains a property of the Union govern-ment and is, arguably, open to use by all agencies, including the police. The other fear is that the govern-ment could significantly expand its surveillance powers by combining the app’s data with existing government databases, many of which are seeded with mobile numbers.

Deb questions a clause that allows the government to share the personal data with “other necessary and relevant persons” for COVID-19 related “medical and administra-tive interventions”. “Administrative functions can also mean that such information can be used towards, say, implementing lockdown and quar-antine orders. This is against global best practices. For instance, the EU says that to comply with its General Data Protection Regulation, the data collected by contact-tracing solutions should be used only for healthcare-re-lated responses to the crisis,” he says.

Matthan argues that the health ministry cannot possibly work in isolation while combating CO-VID-19, and inter-departmental cooperation and sharing of informa-tion is critical.

India has an estimated 400 million or more smartphone users. If even half of them download Aarogya Setu, it could create a contact-tracing map of 200 million—15 per cent of the total population. “In a unique crisis, the app may have a very legiti-mate objective, but it doesn’t stand

up to the test of proportionality,” says Amber Sinha, executive director at the not-for-profit Centre for Internet & Society. “Only data of COVID-19-infected users should be pulled to the cloud server.”

For Matthan, this criticism does not hold water as the details of only those infected are uploaded to the server. “Let’s assume 100,000 people will be infected in India. So, the data of only 100,000 people will be pulled out by the government for analysis and it will remain on the server for only 60 days. So that’s the canvas of the app in a country with 1.3 billion people,” he explains.

Deb says the fact that the app’s code is not open source compromises transparency. “The Singapore tracing app has a dedicated website, which details how the data is collected,

stored, used and deleted. The source code is published for public scrutiny,” he says. Aarogya Setu, in contrast, prohibits users from reverse engi-neering the backend source code, which means independent research-ers cannot ascertain the veracity of official claims that the app is doing this and not that.

Despite these concerns, the of-ficial line is that Aarogya Setu has enough built-in security features to perform its legitimate task without infringing upon the privacy of citi-zens. Privacy concerns can be dealt with by legislating sunset clauses on tracking systems,” says the World Bank report. The next goal is to scale up Aarogya Setu by integrat-ing it with feature phones through IVR support. ■

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant says the data gathered by Aarogya Setu will not be used for any other purpose except COVID-19 medical examination

PERSONAL DETAILS SOUGHT(while downloading app)

GREEN

No symptom, no travel history

Zero risk, safe

Social distancing

Data deleted after 45 days

ORANGE

Travel history, contact with COVID-19 patient(s)

High risk

User, auth-orities alerted; testing advised

Data deleted after 45 days, if not infected

YELLOW

Symptomatic but no travel history or contact with COVID-19 patient(s)

Moderate risk

Self-isolation

Data deleted after 45 days, if not infected

RED

Tested positive

Located and quarantined for treatment

Data deleted after 60 days from the day of getting cured

Action advised Data retention

METHOD

APP’S ACCESSKnows your GPS location

DATA ANALYSIS AND ACTION

A

B

Name

Phone number

Age Sex

Profession

Countries visited in past 30 days

Personal information and location data are stored on the user’s mobile phone and a unique device ID number (DiD) is generated. The app can log data from all mobile devices within the Bluetooth range of the user’s phone.

On testing COVID-positive, a user’s data and details of all people who came within the Bluetooth range of his/ her phone are uploaded to the central cloud server in anonymised form. Alerts go to such people to go for quarantine/ testing.

1

2

Graphic by TA

NM

OY

CH

AK

RA

BO

RTY

8 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

UPFRONT

It hardly needs stating that the first two decades of this century have led humanity into serial crises. Climate change, terrorism, economic meltdowns, growing

nationalism, viral attacks and, finally, a pandemic. The rising cascade of catastrophes seems to be our selected path into the future. It is obvious that most such disasters are the result of failing political and economic policies, coupled with the lack of will and consensus between governments.

Just look at global ambitions related to climate change: as part of the Paris Agreement, governments grudgingly agreed to limit global temperature rise to less than two degrees; all this while cyclones, forest fires and famines will continue. Unwilling to give up ingrained food choices like dairy and beef—whose production contributes to global warming—some people may switch to cultured meat and artificial milk. As a concession to cut vehicular pollution, some will ride electric self-driving cars; but the current system of highways will remain intact, even grow. Air travel will continue, but will be supplemented by hyperloops and maglev trains. Technological advances are merely used to offer more choices in conventional living and retain, as the Americans say, ‘our way of life’.

But things have suddenly changed. With the novel coronavirus spreading everywhere, the wide boundless arc of the good life is now compressed into a more focused domesticity. People are huddled at home, working from there, entertaining each other. The fear of contaminating and being contaminated keeps public life in check. What impact will this have in the long term?

Is this an end to bloated houses, big expensive cars, familiar fast foods, obesity and all the excesses of travel? How then do we imagine life in the city? Our current state of closeted well-being will need a future outlet as places forge an altogether new urban life—a life that adapts the gains of the lockdown into measurable routines. It falls on architects and planners to create a blueprint for the physical structure of the city and, if need be, define extreme and radical solutions. Invention comes at times of crises, and the

current situation is the loudest call to break fresh ground.Can design then ask important civic questions? In cities

reeling with inequities and physical shortage of space, can a family of four learn to live in a quarter of the area occupied by the current middle-class home? Could its compaction also include other ideas of vertical vegetable gardens, solar kitchens and work space to make it an efficient comfort machine? Since work from home would be the new reality, movement in the city would be unnecessary. Could then battery-less mini solar cars operate locally and only in

daylight, forcing people to complete their daily tasks before dark, in accordance with the sun’s rotation? With schools, colleges, restaurants, commerce and entertainment online, neighbourhood community centres could become crucial social connectors, also functioning as primary schools and health clinics? Moreover, in a world digitally connected, physical travel to distant places could be avoided, and entire lives constructed within the ambit of a shortened radius.

Doubtless, there is a tendency to project a utopian idealism when there is a dramatic shift of direction; but it goes without saying that societies everywhere will be profoundly shaped by the pandemic. Those that have the capacity to radically alter their future thinking will gain immensely from the changed circumstances. India, sadly,

has been a timid follower of world trends and has rarely set a path of its own. The failed approaches of the most advanced of countries, which still remain mired to the belief of preserving ‘our way of life’, demands that we create models of our own. At a time when extraordinary shifts in physical space, city life and living patterns are being revealed to us, it seems the right time to forge an independent direction. Shorn of overconsumption, it will dictate the difference between surviving alone or living well together. A new urban future, however uncertain, is always preferable to one that returns to revive a dead cow. ■

Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based architect

BUILDING APOST-COVID REALITY

G U E S T C O L U M N

GAUTAM BHATIA

Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

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Atif Parvez, 28, a poultry farmer in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district, is a worried man. Prices of

broiler chicken have nearly halved in the state, from Rs 90-110 a kg in De-cember to Rs 50 in early April, first on rumours that chicken meat and eggs caused COVID-19 and later from the lockdown. His costs are around Rs 65 a chicken, including chicken feed and staff wages. “If costs can’t be recovered, what’s the point of running a busi-ness?” he asks.

India’s poultry sector is valued at about Rs 80,000 crore (2015-16), ac-

cording to the Department of Animal Husbandry, and broadly divided into two areas—the organised commer-cial sector, with about 80 per cent of the market, and the unorganised or ‘backyard poultry’ sector. According to the Livestock Census 2019, India had a poultry population of 851.8 million, of which 534.7 million were commercial poultry and 317.1 million, the backyard variety. Some of the largest poultry-pro-ducing states are: Tamil Nadu (120.8 million), Andhra Pradesh (107.9 mil-lion) and Telangana (80 million). There are around 30 million farmers engaged in backyard poultry and, overall, the

CRISIS CUTS TO THE BONE

M E AT/ F I S H / P O U LT RY

sector employs about 60 million.The All India Poultry Breeders As-

sociation (AIPBA) has estimated that the sector incurred Rs 22,500 crore in losses from February to mid-April. Sanjeev Gupta, vice-president of the Poultry Federation of India, claims that farmers are left with just 15 per cent of their original livestock, having been forced to cull the rest with demand dropping to almost nothing. The only businesses that will survive, he says, will be the larger ones in the organised sec-tor. Aside from the curtailed business as a result of the lockdown, rumours on social media that drew a link between the coronavirus and chicken meat and eggs have also hit this sector badly. In an attempt to rein in such misleading information, the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying and the FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) issued separate statements to clarify the matter. The Maharashtra government also report-edly announced that FIRs would be

AN

I

By Shubham Shankdhar

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 �INDIA TODAY �1 1

UPFRONT

filed against rumour-mongers.On April 15, the Centre allowed the

resumption of all fishing-related opera-tions, including harvesting, process-ing, cold chain, transport, sales and marketing. Shops are allowed to sell poultry, meat and fish, as long as they ensure strict social distancing. But the pain remains. The AIPBA has report-edly sought urgent help from the Centre,

including a restructuring of loans for poultry farmers, compensation based on the size of the affected farms, and subsidised poultry feed. Gupta says that the government must also issue clear guidelines to local authorities for poultry shops to be opened. If problems continue and farmers stay away from raising chicks, prices will shoot up when the market returns to normal.

On a related note, prices of mutton are already soaring. Rezaur Rahman, a farmer from Chandanbara in East Champaran, Bihar, says the price of mutton rises every year around Holi, but drops soon after. This time, prices have remained high, at Rs 550 per kg. Rates in Delhi have risen to Rs 700 per kg, with supply faltering in some areas.

As per reports, India’s exports of buffalo meat, the coun-try’s second largest farm export, have fallen 50 per cent, to 50,000 tonnes, in the first week of March. The industry had lost Rs 1,500 crore by then, as ex-ports to Vietnam—which caters to the Chinese mar-ket—were stalled. Fauzan Alavi, vice president, All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association, said export units are facing a shortage of shipping containers, but with the Chinese market improving, enquiries have begun. India exported 1.2 million tonnes of buffalo meat, worth Rs 25,168 crore, in 2018-19.

“The situation will not change much (after the new guidelines) because there is lack of coordination between states,” says Payal Kaur, international sales head of Al Hasan Group in Delhi, a top ex-porter of meat to Hong Kong, Iraq and African countries. The firm says it faces restrictions at the local level, leading to a 50 per cent drop in business.

The lockdown has badly hit the fish industry as well. Babu Raja Bhai, a fisherman from Gujarat’s Amreli district, says that apart from his own catch, he used to buy 300-400 pendis (3,000-4,000 kg) of fish daily from other small fishermen to supply to the market. “Everything has halted,” he

says. “Neither are fish being caught nor is business being done.” India’s fisheries sector, employing 14 million, produced 12.6 million tonnes of fish in 2017-18, says the National Fisheries Develop-ment Board. Over 50 different types of fish and shellfish are exported to 75 countries around the world. But today, countries in West Asia and Europe have completely stopped imports. Moham-mad Afzal, 40, promoter of export firm Al Tayyaba Dry Fish in Mumbai, points out that there can be no business when even fish farming is in limbo. “Only those with leftover stock might be sell-ing,” he says. The ban on catching fish during the lockdown impacted not only fishermen and fish farmers, but also the hundreds of thousands employed in sorting and drying of stock.

Kerala, the second largest seafood-export-ing state by value in India after Andhra Pradesh, exported about Rs 5,919 crore worth of marine products in 2017-18. This year, since January 15, no consignment has shipped out of Kochi port. And all export units in the state have remained

closed since March 23, when Kerala imposed its lockdown (a day prior to the Centre’s announcement). “Normally, we get a lot of orders in January. After the virus outbreak, we lost all orders from China,” says Vishakan V., 57, who owns a seafood processing unit in Alappuzha district. Europe and the US also started cancelling orders from February. He says the situation may normalise in another three months, but by then, the ban on trawling will be in force. “We have lost a year due to the pandemic.” Although restrictions have now been eased, with-out export orders and blocked payments, marine processing units can’t operate, he adds. Local fishermen are not going to sea as auction centres remain closed.

Each additional day of the lockdown brings more pain to sectors like these. And with no end in sight, millions of livelihoods are in peril. ■

—with Jeemon Jacob

THE POULTRY FEDERATION

OF INDIA SAYS SOME FARMERS

HAVE BEEN FORCED TO

CULL 85 % OF THEIR FLOCK

`22,500 crore Estimated losses of the poultry

sector from February 1 to April 14

BREAKING IT DOWN

`1,500 crore Estimated losses for meat exporters till early March

50 per cent Fall in chicken meat prices

in UP from Dec 2019 to Apr 2020

60 million Jobs in India’s poultry sector

14 million Jobs in India’s fisheries sector

SUBIR HALDER

INTERRUPTED (Facing page) A poultry farm in Morigaon, Assam; Dumdum fish market in Kolkata on April 14 at the end of the 21-day lockdown

1 2 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

Arvind Panagariya is a pro-lific writer. He has written 20 books, 170 academic papers and twice as many press ar-

ticles in a career of 47 years and lists be-ing the prime minister’s Sherpa in three G20 meetings among his exceptional honours. Economists learn policy-mak-ing as a part of their curriculum. Few find any use for it—except to comment on policies—but many harbour the am-bition to apply it. Panagariya is keen on making policy. He spent a couple of years as the first vice-chairman of NITI Aayog immediately after it replaced Planning Commission. He said he left because he prized his Columbia professorship; but the hard work he put into making NITI Aayog a useful intermediary between the Centre and the states and between economic policy and opportunism went to waste. But he is not one to give up. He has a vaulting ambition for India, irrespective of whether he participates in achieving it. He published India: the Emerging Giant in 2008, and India’s Tryst with Destiny in 2013; now he has written India Unlimited. While the first book was more or less an economic history of independent India, the second made a case for growth. His latest is a shopping bag of reforms—it outlines what Panagariya would do if he were India’s prime minister.

He would give the poor a cash subsidy that would permit all the controls that afflict agriculture to be abolished. Rationing, or the public distribution system, can go and with it procurement at minimum support prices. Competition would come to agricultural markets; agriculture can then specialise in crops in which it is competitive and start export-ing. Panagariya wants states to make leasing of agricultural land easy so that the large number of villagers who own tiny plots can lease them and go and work in cities, instead of dig-ging pits and filling them up under MNREGA. That would remove a major obstacle to a rise in productivity.

In the past three decades, China has become highly com-petitive in manufacturing and dominated world trade; India lost out. Arvind believes this can be reversed for two reasons.

First, with its shrinking population, China’s labour force will also decline, and wages will rise. Second, the trade war with the US will make it less competi-tive. And India can expand manufactur-ing without giving up its specialisation in services; there is no conflict. But the Bharatiya Janata Party government has powerful supporters in industry; under their influence, it has been raising import duties on goods they produce, making the Indian industry even less competitive. Panagariya writes that he would presum-ably favour unilateral free trade (UFT), but sees no chance of the government listening. So he recommends a uniform 10 per cent import tariff on everything. Why not devalue by 10 per cent and have UFT? In the early 1990s, when I was briefly in government, we reduced tariffs and simultaneously devalued. It is best for the government to ignore industry’s pres-sure for protection; but if it is too weak or partisan to do so, it should use exchange manipulation rather than tariffs or im-port restrictions. Panagariya makes con-structive suggestions in many other policy areas, including labour laws, land market laws, affordable housing and dormitories for migrant workers, and slums.

Finance has been one of the economy’s most closely-regulated sectors; regulators have made a perfect mess of it—especially of the banking sector. Panagariya outlines

beautifully how they did it—except that he has nothing to say about the equity market, which SEBI destroyed so perfectly that nothing further could go wrong with it. He lists govern-ment research institutions, but forgets to mention that their research is practically useless, and omits private corporate research which, though tiny, is more likely to be used.

At the end, Panagariya has a chapter on governance, which reads more like a lecture to the prime minister on how to run the economy. This is perhaps the most relevant, though unlikely to find a listener. But there is no harm in being an optimist, especially if one has a pensionable job in the US. ■

Ashok V. Desai was Chief Consultant to the finance minister during the reforms of the 1990s

HOW TO RUN A COUNTRYB O O K S

UPFRONT

INDIA UNLIMITEDReclaiming the Lost Glory

by Arvind PanagariyaHARPERCOLLINS

`302 (Kindle); 423 pages

A shopping bag of reforms—Arvind

Panagariya’s book essentially outlines what he would do if he were India’s prime minister

By Ashok V. Desai

G L A S S H O U S E

LEVEL PLAYING FIELDCongress president Sonia Gandhi recently suggested a two-

year ban on all government advertising to media in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis—an idea roundly criticised by the media. Partymen

instantly began speculating about its source. Could it be Jairam Ramesh? But turns out, it was the brainchild of the Nehru-Gandhi siblings—Rahul and Priyanka. The duo believes the media favours the Narendra Modi government only because they are dependent

on government revenue. If the funds stop flowing, they feel the Congress could level the playing field a little. Wishful thinking?

—Sandeep Unnithan with Kaushik Deka, Ashish Mishra and Kiran D. Tare

Maharashtra principal

secretary (home) Amitabh Gupta landed himself in trouble recently for issuing a curfew pass permitting businessman Kapil Wadhawan and 23 of his family members to travel from Mumbai to Mahabaleshwar during the lockdown. It didn’t help that Wadhawan is under the CBI lens in the YES Bank fraud case. Gupta was sent on compulsory leave by the state government pending an inquiry. But who let the cat out of the bag? It’s being speculated that one of Gupta’s colleagues tipped off a senior government official in Delhi about the free pass.

Dream in Quarantine

The district administration in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh,

recently took over the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University to convert it into a quarantine centre for COVID-19 patients. The Samajwadi Party, however, smells vendetta. The 100-bed medical university was established in 2006 by Azam Khan, their party leader from Rampur. It was his dream project, they insist. But Khan has bigger things to worry about: he’s currently serving time in Sitapur jail, with his wife and son, for their role in a forgery case.

NO FREE PASSES

Illus

trat

ion

by S

IDD

HA

NT

JUM

DE

MANEESH AGNIHOTRI

Jeevan ka

Part - 3 Anmol safar

16 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

BOLD MOVE Prime Minister Modi announces the extension of the lockdown till May 3

The key is to strengthen India’s healthcapacities to battle a possible second

wave of infection, apart from providing substantial relief to the needy and a

stimulus package to revive theflailing Indian economy

C O V E R S T O R Y

L E A D E S S A Y

HOW TO MAKE THE

WORKSTRATEGY

EXIT

By RAJ CHENGAPPA

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 INDIA TODAY 17

18 �INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

C O V E R S T O R Y

L E A D E S S A Y

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his televised address to the nation at 10 am on April 14, he made two gestures that summed up the dilemma that India faced. He started by greeting the nation with a lengyan wrapped around his nose and mouth. And then lowered it soon after to deliver his speech, the substance of which was that the national lockdown would continue for another 19 days. This was to ensure that the curve on the graph showing the number of people infected by the COVID-19 virus in the country flattens and levels out. However, as an incentive, he added that if, within one week, there were clear signs that the containment strategy was working, there would be a gradual reopening of the econ-omy. It was in keeping with what he told state chief ministers in a video conference three days earlier—“Jaan bhi, jahaan bhi (Life as well as livelihood)”. This phrase signalled a departure from the one he used when he first announced the 21-day lockdown on March 24—“Jaan hai to jahaan hai (Health is wealth)”.

So, what prompted the prime minister’s decision to extend the lockdown and opt for a phased opening up of economic activity? And what does the country need to do to make the exit strategy he outlined work to save lives and livelihoods? These are valid questions because

with burgeoning unemployment numbers and the humongous loss to the economy (expected to be 3-4 per cent of GDP), there were worries that, as an expert put it, “the crisis of corona may be replaced by the crisis of hunger”.

BENEFITS OF THE LOCKDOWNWhen the prime minister announced the lock-down on March 24, the previous week had seen a steady rise in cases, but it was still low at 516 cases and nine deaths. On April 14, when the prime minister announced the extension of the lockdown, the number of cases had grown to 11,487 and the deaths to 393. The Union min-istry for health and family welfare (MoHFW) believes the lockdown helped to considerably slow down the spread of the disease. India took six days to move from 6,000 cases to 12,000 as compared to the two days it took the US, Italy three days and Spain four. Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the MoHFW, said in a press briefing that studies by the ministry indicated that without a lockdown and other contain-ment measures, there would have been a 41 per cent cumulative rise in cases. As against 12,000 cases, the number would have shot up to 820,000 by April 15, he suggested.

The other key benefit of the lockdown was that the Centre and the states used the 21-day

WTHE EXTENDED LOCKDOWN WILL GIVE THE CENTRE AND THE STATES TIME TO RAMP UP INDIA’S HEALTH CAPABILITIES TO COMBAT A FURTHER SPREAD

LEADING BY EXAMPLE The prime minister takes stock of the COVID-19 situation via a video conference with state CMs

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 �INDIA TODAY �19

GLIMMER OF HOPE?The lockdown has helped slow down the COVID-19 spread, but it’s still a long haul

5 10March April

15 20 25 5 10 15

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

CO

VID

-19

gro

wth

ra

te (%

) LOCKDOWN PERIOD

Growth rate = (Cases today/ cases previous day) - 1

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare As on April 15, 2020, 5 pm

reprieve to bolster the country’s health capabilities to meet the enormous challenges of COVID-19. The real worry for Team Modi was that should there be an expo-nential growth in cases, afflicting some 100,000 people in a populous city like Mumbai (as has happened in New York), it would immediately need 20,000 hospital beds to isolate these patients and treat them. Of these, some 3,000 would require some sort of ICU care, including ventilator support. When the lockdown was imposed, Mumbai had about 2,600 isolation beds and about 300 ICU beds—far, far short of the requirement to meet a potential crisis. Worse, across the country, there was a huge shortage of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), particularly for medical personnel who were risking their own lives in trying to save the lives of COVID-19 patients.

The other pressing need was to ramp up testing to assess the spread of the virus. One of the major cri ticisms levelled at the Modi government—by Rahul Gandhi, among others—was that our rate of testing was dan-gerously low. Initially, the government had followed the advice of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to test only symptomatic high-risk patients, partly because of the limited availability of testing kits and laboratory facilities in the country. That saw India conducting an average of 5,000 tests a day as compared to South Korea, which with one-twentieth our popu-lation, was doing 20,000 tests daily. That limitation impacted the country in two ways: one, the low testing numbers meant that asymptomatic carriers could be

spreading the virus and, two, the country’s policymakers did not have a correct estimate of how widespread the threat really was for them to lift the lockdown.

To rapidly overcome these and other impediments, the prime minister, on March 29, five days after the lock-down, set up 11 empowered groups comprising senior bureaucrats and top experts (see graphic, The COVID-19 Response Team). Of these, three were dedicated to up-grading the health system. These groups were entrusted by the Prime Minister’s Office to cut red tape and get the job done, including importing equipment, if needed. Modi’s instruction to them was simple: “Don’t tell me what you are doing—tell me what you have delivered. I want outcomes, not inputs.”

GETTING BATTLE-READY The Centre then sanctioned Rs 15,000 crore to meet emergency health needs. By the second week, the groups had begun to show visible results. When it came to PPE requirements, the concerned group adopted a twin strat-egy. India had 300,000 pieces of PPE as against the estimated need of 20 million. Import orders, therefore, were immediately placed with foreign companies—mainly in China and South Korea—for 17.5 million kits. Meanwhile, some 30 Indian companies, both in the pub-lic sector and in the private sector, were asked to start manufacturing these indigenously after the government gave them the specifications and ensured that they could meet the requisite quality standards.

ANI

20 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 202020 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 20, 2020

1. Medical emergency management planDr V.K. PaulMember, NITI Aayog

Dr Renu SwarupSecy, Dept of BiotechnologyDr V. ThiruppugazhJoint Secretary, NDMALav AgarwalJt Secy, HealthDr Amandeep GargJt Secy, Cabinet SecretariatRajender KumarDirector, PMO

4. Augmenting human resources & capacity-buildingArun Panda, Secy, MSMEs

R.S. Shukla, Secy, Parl. AffairsRajesh Kotecha, Secy, AYUSHArun Singhal, Spl Secy, Health Rakesh Kumar Vats, Secy, National Medical CommissionDr P. Ravindran, Dir., Emer-gency Med. Relief, Health Min.Pankaj Agarwal, Jt Secy, Cabinet SecretariatV. Sheshadri, Jt Secy, PMO

6. Coordination with private sector, NGOs, international organisationsAmitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog

Prof. K. VijayRaghavanPrincipal Scientific AdvisorKamal Kishore, Member, NDMAS.M. Bhatnagar, Member, CBICAnil Malik, Addl Secy, HomeTina Soni, Dy Secy, Cabinet SectGopal Baglay, Jt Secy, PMO Aishvarya Singh, Dy Secy, PMO

5. Facilitating supply chain & logistics management for essentialsParameswaran Iyer, Secy, Deptof Drinking Water & Sanitation

Rajendra Singh, Member, NDMARavi Kant, Secy, Dept of Food & Public DistributionPawan Kumar Agarwal, Secy, Consumer AffairsN.N. Sinha, Secy, Dept. of Border Management Ashok Kumar Pandey, Member, CBIC N. Sivasailam, Spl Secy, Commerce MinistryAVM S.K. Jha, Jt Secy, Air, Defence MinistryUsha Padhee, Jt Secy, Civil Aviation Ashutosh Jindal, Jt Secy, Cabinet Secretariat Tarun Bajaj, Addl. Secy, PMO

2. Hospitals, isolation & quarantine facilities, disease surveillance & testing C.K. MishraSecy, Environment Ministry

Vinod Yadav, Chairman, Railway BoardProf. Randeep GuleriaDirector, AIIMSDr Raman R. GangakhedkarHead-ECD, ICMRJiwesh NandanAddl Secy, DefenceRachna ShahAddl Secy, Cabinet SecretariatVikas Sheel, Jt Secy, HealthS. Pardeshi, Jt Secy, PMOMayur Maheshwari, Dir., PMO

3. Availability of essential medical equipmentP.D. Vaghela, Secy, Dept of Pharmaceuticals

Guruprasad Mohapatra, Secy, DPIIT, Commerce Min.Ravi Capoor, Secy, TextilesDr G. Satheesh Reddy, Secy, DRDOM. Ajit Kumar, Chairman, Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC)Naveen SrivastavaJt Secy, External AffairsAnu Nagar, Jt Secy, HealthMandeep BhandariJt Secy, HealthPiyush Goel, Jt Secy, HomeA. Giridhar, Addl Secy, Cabinet SecretariatA.K. SharmaAddl Secy, PMORohit Yadav, Jt Secy, PMO

THE COVID-19 RESPONSE TEAM

The 11 empowered committees, set up on March 29, are at the forefront of the Union government’s response to the pandemic

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Chairman, National Disaster Management

Authority (NDMA)

Rajiv GaubaCabinet Secretary

P.K. MishraPrincipal Secretary

to the PM

Graphic by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 INDIA TODAY 2 1

The team faced a similar problem when it came to testing kits. Two types of kits—the confirmatory test kit called RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction) and the rapid blood test kit—are being used. RT-PCR kits were already being made in India, but not in sufficient quantities. The rapid test, which promised results within half an hour instead of the days RT-PCR tests take, would only indicate whether the immune system had antibodies, signifying an infection; an RT-PCR test would be needed to confirm if it was COVID-19. The government is beefing up the availability of both kits, plac-ing orders for 4.5 million rapid kits and 2.5 million PCR kits, mainly with Chinese companies.

Apart from the kits, there was also a need for labs across the country to analyse the samples. The group identified laboratories across the country, in-cluding in medical colleges and, with online training,

approved close to 219 as on April 13, even as more are being added. When the group took over, 5,500 tests were being done daily; within a fortnight, they had been scaled up to 24,000 tests a day, or by almost five times. By the end of April, the target is expected to hit 40,000 tests. Yet, crucial gaps remain, whether in the testing itself, or in the availability of kits and labs (see accompanying story, Detection Gaps).

The groups tackled the problem of hospital quarantine facilities, including ICU beds and ventilators, with the same vigour. To make best use of the already available facilities, the groups worked on a graded system of healthcare: one for cases with mild symptoms and the other for those exhibiting serious respiratory issues. They followed the thumb rule that 20 per cent of those infected will need some sort of hospitalisation, and 3-5 per cent will require ICUs with ventilators. For the former, the members of the group told the district collectors to identify beds across private and public hospitals, apart from medical colleges, and requisition them to create isola-tion wards with beds. Over 138,000 such isolation beds have been set up across the country, including those provided by the railways, defence and public sector units.

India also had just 32,000 ventilators, when it needed around 80,000. Here again, the policy of asking Indian com-panies to chip in and placing orders with foreign firms was cleared rapidly to acquire 40,000 additional ventilators. Group leader C.K. Mishra, secretary in the Union environ-ment and forests ministry, had instructed his team thus: “We should be prepared for the worst-case scenarios because it will be a huge tragedy if we don’t—every life is precious.”

POST-LOCKDOWN IMPERATIVEEven as most groups were working on fortifying the health services to meet any exponential growth in cases, one of them was concentrating on planning an exit strategy to contain the virus and restart economic activity. Based on the spread and concentration of the positive cases, the team worked out a strategy whereby it split areas into hotspots with large out-

C O V E R S T O R Y

L E A D E S S A Y

7. Economic & welfare measuresAtanu Chakraborty, Secy,

Dept of Economic Affairs

T.V. Somanathan, Secy, ExpenditureHeeralal Samariya, Secy, Labour

Rajesh Bhushan, Secy, Rural Dev.Pankaj Jain, Addl Secy,

Dept of Financial ServicesAmrapali Kata, Dy Secy, Cabinet Sect

Arvind Shrivastava, Jt Secy, PMOKavitha Padmanabhan, Dy Secy, PMO

8. Information, communication and

public awarenessRavi Mittal, Secy, I&B

Sunil Kumar, Secy, Panchayati Raj

Lt Gen. Syed Ata HasnainMember, NDMA

Punya Salila SrivastavaJt Secy, Home

Padmaja SinghJt Secy, Health

Sandeep SarkarJt Secy, Cabinet Sect

Gopal Baglay, Jt Secy, PMOHiren Joshi, OSD, PMO

Pratik MathurDy Secy, PMO

9. Technology & data management

Ajay Sawhney, Secy, Electronics & IT Min.

Anshu Prakash, Secy, Dept of Telecom

G.S. Toteja, ADG, ICMRDr N. Yuvraj, Dy Secy,

Ayushman BharatBharat H. Khera, Jt Secy,

Cabinet SecretariatPratik Doshi, OSD, PMO

Manharsinh YadavDy Secy, PMOHardik ShahDy Secy, PMO

10. Public grievances & suggestions

Amit Khare, Secy, HRD

K. Shivaji, Secy, Min. of Personnel

Ashutosh AgnihotriJt Secy, Home Min.

Meera MohantyDir., Cabinet Sect

Saurabh Shukla, Dir., PMOAbhishek Shukla

Dy Secy, PMO

11. Strategic issues linked to lockdownAjay Kumar Bhalla, Secretary, Home

Dr V.K. Paul, Member, NITI AayogV.P. Joy, Secretary (Coordination), Cabinet Sect

A.K. Sharma, Addl Secy, PMOArvind Shrivastava, Jt Secy, PMO

Abhishek Shukla, Dy Secy, PMO

2 2 �INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

breaks, those with clusters of infection in them and potential hotspots. This was done in consul-tation with states and plotted on the Indian map (see accompanying story, The Line of Corona Control). The figures, as on April 16, were 123 hotspots with large outbreaks, 47 with clusters and 207 potential hotspots—in all 377 affected districts, a little more than half of India’s total 720 districts. In the next two weeks, there will be a concentrated focus on these hotspots, where there will be a total lockdown in containment zones, which number 1,500 so far. This will be followed by intensive testing, along with the iso-lation and treatment of those who test positive.

This is one of the major reasons why Modi extended the lockdown for another 19 days to give the government greater confidence to lift it after May

3. Yet, the threat will remain even after the lockdown is lifted. Dr Vinod K. Paul, member, NITI Aayog, points to three challenges ahead. Firstly, he advocates that individuals, families and members of society observe a new normal to maintain social distancing in their interactions and ensure the continued use of masks, hand-washing and restrictions on congregations. He terms these ‘30 per cent of lockdown behaviour’ and warns, “We cannot go back to our old ways as this would be a recipe for disaster.” The second point he makes is that the lockdown will not kill the virus, only contain it. It is bound to prolifer-ate again and the preparatory effort the country has put in during the lockdown for surveillance, health delivery and containment systems should help keep it in check. Thirdly, he says the lock-down has to be eased out in a manner that, in his words, can help “get maximum economic gain with minimum loss of lives through the pandemic—that is the balance we have worked out through the lockdown”.

This was what Modi did too, by announc-ing that the government would, from April 20 onward, start the process of restoring livelihoods by permitting economic activity in key sectors, such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals, packag-ing, exports, e-commerce, construction and self-contained industrial clusters. The prime minister is deeply concerned about the looming economic crisis not just in India but the entire world. A top official involved in the decision-making process reveals that while planning for restarting economic activity, it was evident that

it could not be what he termed a digital stop-start, “you cannot go from 0 to 1—even if you open up all industry, it cannot go to 100 per cent in a week. It will have to be gradual, possibly one step at a time, for it to ramp up production.” Officials confess that they have not dealt with an economic crisis of this magnitude in the past—neither in 2008 nor in 1991—when both supply and demand have been totally depressed and almost all economic activity, barring in essential sectors, has ceased, a phenomenon most econo-mies in the world are grappling with.

THE LONG ROAD TO RECOVERYOne of the empowered groups, headed by Union secretary Atanu Chakraborty, who also heads the department of economic affairs, has been tasked with working out appropriate economic and welfare measures. Based on their inputs and those from other departments, including the department of promotion for industry and internal trade, the government is approaching economic rehabilitation and revival through three broad strategies. Its top priority is to en-sure that the poor, migrant labour and farmers who have been hit hard by the lockdown are provided adequate relief both in terms of food and cash. On March 25, a day after the lock-down, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a raft of measures totalling Rs 1.7 lakh crore for these groups, including increas-ing grains and pulses entitlements under the public distribution system and cash transfers to farmers, women and senior citizens in addi-tion to free cylinders to BPL families. Already, Rs 32,000 crore has been disbursed in the past

TEAM MODI IS WORKING ON A RADICAL REBOOT OF THE ECONOMY, MADE POSSIBLE—EVEN NECESSARY—BY THE WORLDWIDE DISRUPTIONS OF THE GREAT LOCKDOWN

C O V E R S T O R Y

L E A D E S S A Y

ALL HANDS ON DECK Finance

minister Nirmala Sitharaman

undergoes a thermal scan at North Block; far

right, defence minister Rajnath

Singh chairs GoM meeting on

COVID-19

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 �INDIA TODAY �2 3

week, and a second round is expected next month.Despite suggestions from experts, including Nobel

laureates Amartya Sen and Abhijit Banerjee, to give direct cash benefits to people rather than route assistance through various relief schemes, the Modi government so far has been averse to what it sees as disbursing doles without ac-countability. As a senior official put it, “The prime minister is against such loose doles and is judicious, even stingy, about spending money—he will do so only when he is con-vinced it would go to the right people.” He also points out how the government has given states Rs 11,000 crore for the 700,000 migrant labour in cities, including construction workers, to ensure their basic needs are met.

Even for the first stage of reviving the economy, Modi insisted on focusing on agriculture and ensuring that the rabi harvest was a success. The measures included freeing all truck movement and pushing through radical reforms such as bypassing the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) to purchase grain directly from the farmers. Great attention was paid to detail, includ-ing allowing dhabas to remain open on the highways so that truck drivers transporting supplies could have food en route. The government also stopped discriminating between essential and non-essential goods for transport, in an order dated April 12, as it was causing enormous blockages at check-posts. As an officer put it, “The speedy movement of the entire supply system was dependent on the whims and moods of the constable manning the post.”

The government also lifted all restrictions on the poul-try, fisheries and meat industry as well as milk distribution, which should see close to 30 million people return to work. For medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs), a sec-tor that employs 120 million, the Reserve Bank of India has announced an indirect relief package totalling Rs 50,000 crore. But getting the MSME sector back on its feet will be an uphill task (see accompanying story Getting Down to

Business). If the process of harvesting goes smoothly, and much of the labour finds adequate work in this sector, the government is confident it will stem the growing unrest and despair resulting from the lockdown and also infuse liquidity and demand back into the economy.

However, a State Bank of India report, after the extension of the lockdown, bears grim tidings, including GDP growth dropping to 1 per cent in FY21. It estimates that the total loss in in-

come to the 373 million workers—whether self-employed (52 per cent of the total), casual workers (25 per cent) or the remaining regular workers—works out to around Rs 4 lakh crore (or 2 per cent of GDP) and that any fiscal package should strive to make up the loss. In addition, merchandise exports are expected to decline by 16 per cent while the output loss is expected to be $50 billion (Rs 1.86 lakh crore). Some of this can be compensated by exports of services, particularly in the field of information and communications technology, as the pandemic is certain to give a push to digitisation and enhanced use of software to maintain social distancing norms for a while. But key sec-tors such as automotives, textiles, construction, aviation and tourism saw an average 50 per cent drop in output. Top economic experts talk of the need for an additional stimulus of at least 5 per cent of GDP, or about Rs 10 lakh crore. As part of the second leg of its strategic recovery, the government is working on a stimulus for sectors that urgently require it. However, as a senior official put it, “Don’t expect us to spend like mad or throw away money—the bucks will go wherever we get the most bang out of it.” The government is likely to step up its plans to spend the Rs 20 lakh crore it had earlier set aside for infrastruc-ture, whether roads, rail or ports, to boost employment.

The third prong of the strategy Team Modi is work-ing on is a radical reboot of the economy which the Great

2 4 �INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

Lockdown (a term coined by IMF’s chief economist Gita Gopinath) offers an opportunity for. The argument put forward by many senior officials is that the pandemic will forever change the way we do business and could see a ma-jor churning in the global trade and financial architecture. “It gives the Modi government an opportunity to aspire for big-ticket reforms,” says an official. BJP ideologue Ram Madhav even talked in terms of the prime minister laying a New Deal for India as Franklin D. Roosevelt had done for the US after the Great Depression in the 1930s. Cur-rently, the thinking is not to dilute the process by trying to focus on widespread reforms but to concentrate on a handful of sectors such as power, agriculture, petroleum, mining and labour and ensure that these are achievable.

NO EASY EXITYet, industry has serious concerns about the government’s moves to restore economic ac-tivity even after May 3. The key would be to reduce the designated hotspots to a mini-mum, otherwise manufacturing activity will continue to be stymied. A study by the HDFC Bank research team shows that areas with high incidence of COVID-19 and falling in the hotspot zones are the biggest contributors to the Indian economy. The group that has the highest number of cases, including Maha-rashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi, cumulatively accounts for 30 per cent of India’s GDP. Ma-harashtra and Tamil Nadu alone account for 27.6 per cent of India’s manufacturing output and 23.5 per cent of services output. These three states also account for as much as 22 per cent of all-India construction output. Another cluster of states—UP, Rajasthan, Andhra, Telangana and MP—which accounts for 34 per cent of all-India manufacturing activity, has fewer number of cases, but remains vulnerable.

Even the restricted number of industries outside the COVID-19 ‘hotspots’ that have been allowed to resume activity will take a couple of months to actually come on stream. The gov-

ernment has permitted construction activity, provided strict social distancing guidelines are adhered to. But the hotspots are the areas where normally most construction activity takes place. For instance, Mumbai, a hotspot, currently has the highest under-construction residential stock of nearly 465,000 units. This accounts for 30 per cent of the 1.56 million under-construction stock across the top seven cities. Moreover, most of the migrant labour-ers have already left for their home states, so getting them back to the construction sites will not be easy. Migrant workers comprise at least 80 per cent of the total 44 mil-lion workforce in the construction sector at present, says

real estate consultant Anarock.The key remains in clearing the hotspots, particularly

in metros such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and parts of Delhi, which have the highest demand for consumer goods and durables, automobiles and garments. The Rs 7.6 lakh crore automotive sector, for instance, will find it pointless to start production if the dealerships in cities and towns remain closed. “In fact, the starting point of the automotive business is the dealerships. For us, it makes sense to start only when the inventory gets moving,” says Vikram Kirloskar, president of the Confed-eration of Indian Industry (CII). Only a free movement of goods into and out of factories can make it sustainable for businesses to operate. R.C. Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki, says that his company cannot start operations

immediately since the automotive industry is a highly supply chain-driven one. Between 70 and 80 per cent of the parts that go into making a Maruti Suzuki vehicle are sourced from different suppliers, mostly In-dian. “If my company has, say, 350 suppliers, and even if five of them are in the ‘red’ zone, I won’t be able to manufacture,” he says. The com-pany doesn’t have a problem opening its dealerships, as some 60 per cent of them are outside the so-called hotspots. But the disruption in the supply chain will make production of cars impossible.

It is not easy, therefore, to muster optimism unless industry is confident that it can resume business without major disruption. Yet, with the virus lurking around, the uncertainty will persist. In India, the virus may be con-tained in the coming months by what an official called “General Summer’s help”, referring to the approaching season. But experts expect a second wave in September-November —the prime season for flu flare-ups. Of course, as South Korea has shown, strong intervention can keep the virus in check and help resumption of economic activity.

The one ray of hope is that with several groups across the world and in India working on a vaccine, we could well have one by the end of the year. India is well positioned to not only mount such an R&D initiative, but also has the manufacturing capacity to become one of the world’s largest producers of such a vaccine. Characterising it as a great opportunity, Dr V.K. Paul says, “We should chase the R&D solution crazily and relentlessly not just in India but across the world. Because if we succeed, we will remove all commas against the virus and put a full stop to it.” That is a venture India and the rest of the world should invest heavily in. �

—with M.G. Arun

C O V E R S T O R Y

L E A D E S S A Y

APART FROM A STIMULUS PACKAGE, INDIA MUST CONTAIN THE NUMBER OF VIRUS HOTSPOTS TO PUT INDUSTRY BACK ON ITS FEET

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Ranking by Media HousesCSR-GHRDC - 20195th Top Law School of Eminence 2nd Top Law School in Karnataka

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DETECTION

India’s testing strategy leaves much to bedesired, even as it struggles to procure test

kits and assess the progress of the disease toformulate an appropriate response

By Sonali Acharjee

Having reconciled to a three-week lockdown, most Indians waited anxiously on the morning of April 14 to hear how the prime minister would lift it—fully

or incrementally—only to find that the shutdown had been extended by another 19 days. No one disputes the necessity of a lockdown—according to a study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), one person can infect 406 people in 30 days if he or she doesn’t isolate—but at the end of three weeks, everyone is asking if the move did achieve what it had set out to do when it was imposed on March 24. The jury is still out. As India reported 12,338 cases and 420 deaths on April 16, it wasn’t clear if the country had managed to flatten the curve. “We still have to wait 7-10 more days to know if we have flattened the curve,” says K. Srinath Reddy, chairman of the Public Health Initiative of India (PHFI), a not-for-profit public-private initiative. “We can’t assess if the lockdown has been successful till more data is collected and analysed, especially age and state-specific data.” And there is only one way to get that data—through intensive and widespread testing.

Testing in IndiaIndia has a long way to go before it can come even close to the 10,550 tests per million that South Korea has conducted—without resorting to a lockdown—to restrict its total number of COVID-related deaths to 229. As on April 16, India had tested 258,730 individuals or 196 tests per million. But with the death rate now doubling every four days, the country has no option but to drastically revise its strategy if it has to limit minimise the number of coronavirus deaths. Extend-ing the lockdown has been one measure; the other will be to ramp up testing.

Towards that end, the government issued new guidelines for testing on April 13. India will now test symptomatic cases not just in areas with high rate of infections, or what are called hotspots, but also in areas with low or no infections, or cold spots, using rapid antibody tests that can alert one to an infec-tion before it can be confirmed with a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. Asymptomatic high-risk contacts and healthcare workers, on the other hand, can directly go for the RT-PCR test. “There are significant changes to our testing strategy now,” says Raman Gangakhedkar, chief scientist at ICMR. “We are doing all we can to increase our capacity to nearly 100,000 tests a day (from the 24,000 or so per day current-ly).” Rapid tests for symptomatic cases had

VIKRAM SHARMA

C O V E R S T O R Y

C O V I D T E S T I N G

GAPS

TESTING TIMES Dr Dangs Lab technicians rehearse drive-though testing at New Delhi’s Punjabi Bagh West

2 8 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

POSITIVELYVICIOUS

RT-PCRReverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction Test)

11

Both symptomatic as well as asymptomatic high-risk cases can get these confirmatory tests

Indian strategyThe test itself is considered the gold standard for testing. However, for the test to be completely foolproof, youneed to ensure:

� Sample or the chemicals used to convert RNA to DNA are not contaminated

� The primers and probes to target COVID-19 genesare designed accurately to match its genetic sequence

� The PCR machine is spun a minimum number of times to adequately amplify the DNA

Is it reliable?

� Some states areconsidering pool testing, in which multiple samples areclubbed and a single test run on them

� If the result is positive, each person has to be tested individually

� Pooled tests requirezero false negatives

� ICMR has also approved the use ofTrueNat, a machineused to detect drug-resistant tuberculosis, for COVID testing. It will be a screening test requiring a throat or nasal sample. TrueNat tests costRs 1,000-1,500 andproduce results inunder an hour

Variations

The novel coronavirus is surrounded by 29 crown-like spike proteins that attach themselves to human cells and infect them. To detect its presence, the RNA in a sample has to be first converted into DNA, thenamplified to help sequester the gene specific to COVID-19

How it works

1. A swab is collected from a patient’s

throat and nostril. The sample is kept in a viral transport

medium and taken to an ICMR-approved lab

for testing

4. DNA is amplified in the PCR machine which is spun around 40 times, heating and cooling the

sample and creating thousands of copies of the DNA for the test to

measure

6. Probes that complement DNA fragments found in

the virus are then used. If any viral genetic material is present, these fragments

bind to it

7. Chemical markers

attached to the DNA release fluorescence

when the binding occurs

8. The flashes of fluorescence are

measured by a machine to determine

the presence of the virus in a sample

9. If there is no coronavirus in the

sample, the primers will not amplify the

DNA and the probes will remain dark

2. The RNA orRibonucleicacid in the

coronavirus isfirst extracted

from the sample

5. Primers, which are designed to match the genetic sequence unique to the virus, ensure that the PCR machine amplifies only that part of DNA which matches

its genetic sequence

3. It is then converted to DNA

using reagentchemicals

India has two kinds of tests in its arsenal to combat COVID-19: the confirmatoryRT-PCR test and the indicative rapid antibody test. Here is what both entail

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 INDIA TODAY 2 9

been greenlighted by the empow-ered committee set up on March 29 under Dr V.K. Paul, member, NITI Aayog. “Rapid tests will help gauge the extent of the spread and make it quicker to isolate potential cases,” says Dr Paul.

To prepare for the widespread testing, ICMR has granted licences to 51 companies to sell rapid test kits and another 33 firms to sell PCR test kits in India. The body has also floated a tender to acquire 5.3 million kits for the transport of viral samples, 2.5 million PCR test kits and 4.5 million rapid test kits.

But Is It Enough?For sure, the country has come a long way since ‘patient zero’ tested positive in Kerala on January 30. Between then and March 27, only 27,686 samples had been tested, of which 834 were positive. Ten days from then, the number of samples tested went up to 73,380, and the number of cases rose to 3,955. As many as 11,432 samples were tested on April 6 alone, of which 311 were confirmed cases. But testing still varies widely between states. So, while West Bengal with 99 million people has conducted only 38 tests per million, Kerala, with 34 million people, tested 497, as on April 16.

A primary reason for slow testing in India is the unavailabil-ity of test kits. In early February, the National Institute of Virology in Pune had procured 1 million reagents (chemicals that convert RNA in the virus to DNA) and 1 million primers and probes (which amplify DNA and then detect the genetic sequence specific to COVID-19) for PCR tests. Though Gangakhedkar insists India has enough test kits for the next six weeks, there is no available official count on the current stock with

ICMR. The 500,000 rapid kits or-dered earlier departed from China only on April 16, almost a month late. “There is a global shortage in rapid kits, as almost all countries are looking to introduce it,” says Malini Aisola, co-convenor of advocacy group All India Drugs Action Network. “Till we have enough quality equipment for testing, you cannot ramp it up.”

Not just rapid kits, PCR kits too are in short supply. While rapid kit manufacturers are yet to be cleared in India, the empow-ered committee is trying to give domestic manufacturing a push for PCR kits. Three labs—NIV and the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI) in Pune, and the National Institute of Patholo-gy in New Delhi—evaluated non-FDA or non-European CE-certi-fied commercial kits. On March 23, MyLabs in Pune became the first to get ICMR approval to sell its COVID-19 kit. Though the company, in existence since 2016, claims to be ‘FDA approved’ on its website, its products do not have FDA approval. MyLabs CEO Hashmukh Rawal clarifies: “We spent the last six years work-ing to develop our ID NAT kit, which detects HIV molecules in blood samples. We have received CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation) clear-ance for this, equivalent to an FDA clearance in India.” The kit, priced at Rs 800, was designed in six weeks by Minal Bhosale, R&D head at MyLabs, who had earlier worked with NIV Pune during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

On April 2, Bhopal-based Kilpest India became the second Indian company to receive clear-ance for its kit. The company had earlier been rejected after its kit’s true positive correlation scored 75 per cent, even as the true negative

Graphics by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY AND RAJ VERMA

C O V E R S T O R Y

C O V I D T E S T I N GRapid/ Antibody/

Serology Test

22

� All symptomatic cases in hotspots will have to take a rapid antibody test if they have been ill for more than a week to detect the presence of infection

� If they test positive, they are sent for clinical assessment and treatment

� If the result is negative, then they are required to get a confirmatory RT-PCR test

� There is no strategy as of now to test asymptomatic cases who might not have come in contact with a positive case

India’s strategy

� It involves a simple prick of the finger to get a blood sample

� The sample is then examined to see if it has any antibodies, which develop in response to an infection in the body. Immunoglobin M (IgM) antibodies develop first, 5-8 days after an infection, followed by Immunoglobin G (IgG) antibodies

How it works

� ICMR has clarified this is a screening and not a confirmatory test by itself

� IgM and IgG antibodies can develop against any infection. The presumption is that COVID-19 being the most prevalent infection in a hotspot, antibodies would have developed as a response to it

� These tests are useful to gauge if someone has been infected by COVID-19and recovered on their own. They could also be an indicator of pre-existing immunity against the virus

� It is also a quick and cheaper way to judge if symptomatic cases need to go for further clinical assessment or an RT-PCR confirmatory test

Is it reliable?

30 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

correlation was 100 per cent. “After the first attempt, we added one more targeted gene and played around with the internal chem-istry a bit,” says Dhirendra Kuber Dubey, director of the company.

Together, the two companies claim they can manufacture 8.3 million kits per month. Adar Poonawalla, whose Serum Institute has partnered with MyLabs, says, “Our produc-tion capacity is 1.5 lakh units a week, we will soon scale it up to 20 lakh a week.” Asked how many kits his company has delivered so far to the government, Rawal vaguely offers: “We have delivered thousands across the cou-ntry to state departments and private labs.”

Then, there is the question of the validity and reliability of the tests themselves. Of the 51 firms the government has cleared for rapid kits, seven are Chinese. Of these,

two—Wangfo and All Test—are the ones from which the UK too has ordered about a million kits. On April 6, Professor John Bell, coordinator of coronavirus testing for government agency Public Health England, announced that the tests had “not performed well” when being evaluated and that they had a high number of false positives and nega-tives. Spain, too, allegedly withdrew 58,000 kits made by Chinese firm Shenzen Bioeasy Biotechnology as they were not accurate, though India is not importing from them.

The RT-PCR test itself is the gold sta-ndard in testing, asserts biotechnologist and gene specialist Virander S. Chauhan. “Unless the samples or chemicals are contaminated,” he says, “it gives an extremely accurate picture of whether a sample has a virus or not; it is, after all, hunting for a gene specific to COVID-19.” But a lot also depends on the design of the kit, the genes it targets and how samples are collected and tested. As per ICMR’s own declaration, neither Kilpest nor MyLabs was tested as per its guidelines for sensitivity or specificity as no false positive or false negative samples were taken. False nega-tive and positive determinations for kits are a step requisite for both FDA and European CE approvals. “We are ensuring every test has a 100 per cent true negative and a 100 per cent true positive,” says Dr Gangakhedkar. There are methods by which repeatedly testing a kit could ascertain its sensitivity and specific-

C O V E R S T O R Y

C O V I D T E S T I N G

TEST CASEThe countries that got it right—and wrong

Test, track,treatCountries such as Iceland, South Korea and Singaporeramped up testing and followed it up with rigorous contact tracing of positive cases

The lostmonthThe US now has over 28,000 COVID deaths. Many attribute this to the fact that the country took a relatively long time to ramp up testing. By March 16, it had done only 74 tests per million inhabitants, while S. Korea had done 5,200 per million by the same date

AwarenessVietnam has only267 infections, no deaths. A study by data firm Premise shows 52% knew testing was available; 87% of them knew where to go for it

At easetestingSome countries havepioneered creativeways to test, such as the drive-throughtest by South Korea, home andphone-booth testing elsewhere

Faulty primersOn March 4, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent test kits using four sets of primers to state labs. Three were designed to detect COVID-19, while the other was a negative control. Thelabs reported getting false positive results in negative controls,The entire batch had to be recalled

Home madeWith global test kit shortage, S. Koreabegan homeproduction. OneKorean firm, SDBiosensor, alonemakes 2.5 kits per second

PrivacyIn Singapore and South Korea, a copy of your test is sent to you via text ande-mail and a hard copy given. Private,easily accessibleresult drives morepeople to test

Price oftreatmentStudies show that many Americansare reluctant to be tested fearing thatthey will have to bear significant expensesfor treatment if they test positive

Best Practices

America Fails the Test

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 INDIA TODAY 31

ity, but ICMR is yet to make public its protocol for testing kits before approval, in the absence of which it is impos-sible to judge the reliability of the kits being cleared for sale. “We would have a clearer picture of whether false negative or positive samples are needed for kits if we knew how the tests for sensitivity and specificity were being conducted,” says Aisola. A false positive can mean isolation for a person, but a false nega-tive for an infected person will mean no treatment or isolation—undesirable for a disease as infectious as COVID-19. ICMR declined to comment on either the protocol for kit clearance or why manufacturers are not being provided human controls. (A positive control is a

sample of the COVID-19 RNA, which can be extracted either from a human sample or a synthetic one.)

The reliability of RT-PCR tests also depends heavily on lab infrastructure, trained lab technicians and the avail-ability of PPE, or personal protection equipment, to prevent sample contami-nation. India still has only 219 testing facilities for 720 districts, which means samples have to be packed and trans-ported, delaying results. Various state governments have requested ICMR to clear 45 labs, but only eight had been cleared till April 13. Dr Pradip Kundu of the School of Tropical Medicine, an ICMR-approved testing centre in Kolkata, says they have an extreme

shortage of PPE and trained person-nel. “We have one virologist and three microbiologists, but we need expert technicians and an automated RNA extraction machine,” he says.

What is also needed is communica-tion about testing. “Public outreach is the foundation of a good public health strategy,” says Chapal Mehra, a public health analyst in Delhi. “People need to know basics—the kinds of tests, their reliability and cost, who should be tested and at what stage.” Communication, after all, played a huge role in Kerala’s success in dealing with the disease. Field workers made door to door calls to tackle any fear of being tested. “No disease can be stopped without people’s participation,” says Dr Amar Fettle, the nodal officer for infectious diseases in the state health department. “The public will step up when they know what to do. So we made it extremely clear that if you have symptoms, go to a quick centre for a PCR test. If you don’t have symptoms but have been in contact with someone who does, consult a doctor and get a PCR test. We ensured everybody knew this, from schoolchildren to the elderly.”

There is now an effort to dissemi-nate information via social media, radio and television, but confusion remains. Many do not know the differ-ence between rapid and RT-PCR tests, and do not realise that the rapid test is not a confirmatory test for COVID-19. Bengaluru-based start-up Bione has been selling single-use rapid kits for Rs 2,500, claiming in their description that they can provide results in 5-10 minutes. On April 5, CDSCO released a public notice saying the company did not have a licence to sell in India and was not on the list of ICMR-verified rapid kits.

India has bought itself some more time by extending the lockdown, but has yet to get its act together. The gov-ernment has placed orders for PPE, an-nounced plans to enlist ENT specialists to collect samples and to expand testing centres to include medical colleges. Test-ing, however, has still not been ramped up to desired levels. Lockdowns, after all, can only be temporary reprieves. �

A LONG WAY TO GOWhere India stands in terms of testing

Vis-a-vis the rest

Current no. of tests

24,000per day

13,926,000to match South Korea’s 10,550 tests per million

12,361,800to compete with the US’s9,365 tests per million

6,270,400to keep up with the UK’s 4,750 tests per million

As on April 16, India had tested 258,730 individuals, or 196 tests per million. In order to reach the average testing levels of other countries, India needs to conduct the following number of tests:

Rapid test kits ordered

4.5million

Desired no. of tests

100,000per day

Orders for PCR tests

2.5million

Domesticmanufacturing capacity

8 mnper month

Firms granted import licences

33for PCRkits

51for rapid kits

State oftestingHow differentstatesmeasure up

WestBengal

38

Andaman & Nicobar

3,307

HIGHEST TESTSPER MILLION

All figures as on April 16.States with less than five COVID cases were notincluded

LOWEST TESTSPER MILLION

Delhi

830Rajasthan

599

UttarPradesh

92

Bihar

72

Source: South Korea health dept, NHS UK and CDC, as on April 16

Hotspots and containment zones within them are the thrust areas as the government looks to maximise

gains from the extended lockdown

By AMARNATH K. MENON

THE LINE OF CORONA CONTROL

C O V E R S T O R Y

H O T S P O T S

HIGH ALARMA doctor, in protective suit, screens residents of Dharavi in Mumbai

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 INDIA TODAY 3 3

On the 90-foot road, an otherwise vibrant spot in Mumbai’s Dharavi, policemen take out a flag march appeal-ing to people to stay

home. Teams of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) go checking door to door for those with symptoms of COVID-19, such as high fever, persistent cough and breathing difficulty. With 86 positive cases and nine deaths (as on April

16) among its estimated 850,000 residents, Dharavi, one of Asia’s most densely populated slums spread over just 2.4 km, has been the focus of considerable attention by worried municipal officials.

By mid-April, the BMC had marked out nearly 400 ‘outbreak containment zones’ across Mumbai. Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban are two of the 170 ‘hotspots’ of coro-navirus in the country—and among Maharashtra’s 14—as classified by

the Union ministry for health and family welfare (MoHFW). In Delhi, where the ministry has identified 10 hotspots, the number of containment zones has gradually risen to 55. It is these hotspots where the Centre and states aim to focus their energy and resources in the coming weeks of the extended lockdown to try and flatten the coronavirus curve.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on April 14 made this amply evident. Modi said

VIRUS FOOTPRINTMore than half of India’s districts have been identified as ‘hotspots’ or ‘potential hotspots’

Hotspots with large outbreaks

Hotspots with clusters of infection

Potential hotspots reporting cases

LADAKH

0 1 1

JAMMU & KASHMIR

6 2 5

PUNJAB

4 4 9

HARYANA

4 2 12

DELHI

9 1 1

RAJASTHAN

11 1 13

GUJARAT

5 1 14

MADHYA PRADESH

5 1 17

MAHARASHTRA

11 3 15

GOA

0 0 2

KARNATAKA

3 5 11

KERALA

6 1 6

BIHAR

1 3 7

JHARKHAND

0 2 3

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

0 0 1

ASSAM

0 5 7

MEGHALAYA

0 0 1

MIZORAM

0 0 1

TRIPURA

0 0 2

WEST BENGAL

4 0 8

ODISHA

1 1 7

CHHATTISGARH

1 1 3

ANDAMAN

0 1 0

TELANGANA

8 1 19

HIMACHAL

PRADESH 0 5 0

CHANDIGARH

1 0 0

UTTARAKHAND

1 2 3

UTTAR

PRADESH

9 4 28

ANDHRA PRADESH

11 0 0

PUDUCHERRY

0 0 2

TAMIL NADU

22 0 9

Source: MoHFW

ANI 123Hotspot districts with

large outbreaks

47Hotspot districts

with clusters

207Non-hotspot districts with

clusters (potential hotspots)

3 4 �INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

C O V E R S T O R Y

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that states and Union territories that will effectively contain the CO-VID spread in their hotspots could expect some relaxations from the prevailing restrictions after April 20. In their rounds of discussions, too, the prime minister and the chief ministers have concurred that the way forward is to stringently enforce protocols in the hotspots in order to contain any spurt in cases.

Announcing its new national-level classification of 170 hotspots and 207 potential hotspots on April 15, the MoHFW laid down the strategy to contain the spread of COVID-19 within and from them (see Virus Footprint). According to the new administrative etiquette, hotspots are districts where the number of cases is doubling in less than four days, or districts which contribute more than 80 per cent of cases in a state or in the country. Based on how many outbreak containment zones, or clus-ters, a hotspot has, the ministry has categorised them as districts that have experienced ‘large outbreaks’ (123) or have ‘clusters’ of infection (47). The ministry hoped that these ‘red zones’ could move to the ‘orange zone’ category if they remained free of new cases for 14 days, and further to the ‘green zone’ if this was maintained for another fortnight (so far, 25 districts in 15 states have moved to the orange zone). The potential hotspots were classified as districts that do not meet the hotspot criteria, but have reported cases nonetheless.

CONTAINMENT STRATEGYOutbreak containment zones in the hotspots form the building block of the states’ strategy to slow down the spread of COVID-19 (see Covid Checkpoints). It is estimated that there are already more than 1,500 of them across the country, and officials are bracing for many more as the number of positive cases rises steadily. States have marked out the containment zones going by their assessment of the potential risk of spread, based on the number of positive cases and the suspected cases among their primary contacts.

So, the area of a containment zone varies. In Uttar Pradesh, these are areas with a minimum of six positive cases. In the initial days of the outbreak, the Madhya Pradesh administration had defined a contain-ment zone as an area of 1 km radius from the outermost geographical

point an infected person had come in contact with, along with an additional 2 km buffer area. As cases mounted, the definition was amended, with the infected person’s house as the epicen-tre and a ‘practical area’ around it, as determined by the health authorities.

Definitions may vary, but the focus in all outbreak containment zones is sanitation, isolation of positive cases, controlling the spread of infec-tion by identifying suspected cases early and sending them for lab tests. The detection of every new case is fol-lowed by their primary contacts being tracked down within and outside the containment zone.

Confining residents of a contain-ment zone to their homes has been somewhat easier in places with high public awareness. Otherwise, au-thorities are known to have deployed stronger means, such as heavy police patrolling and concertina wire

DESPERATE TIMES A deserted stretch of Ramganj

in Jaipur; (far right) security personnel on the streets of

Delhi’s Nizamuddin

PURUSHOTTAM DIWAKAR

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 �INDIA TODAY �35

fencing of the zones. Across states, now, there is increasing reliance on technology, such as the use of drones for surveillance.

DEMAND AND SUPPLYA dedicated supply of daily essentials by the authorities is critical for the containment strategy to succeed. But supplies in many clusters are neither uniform nor regular. A successful enterprise has been the delivery of cooked meals, priced at Rs 5, to the poor by the Telangana government-run Annapurna canteens in some of the containment zones in Hyderabad.

In Delhi, the historic Nizamuddin quarter, where two adjoining areas have been demarcated as containment zones, is emblematic of the social and administrative tensions simmering in the cordoned-off areas. Ratish Nanda of the Aga Khan Foundation, which

has been working in the locality for several years, points out that although the neighbourhood is now notorious for the outbreak of COVID-19 infec-tions among Tablighi Jamaat mission-aries, who had gathered at their global headquarters here in March, “there have actually been very few cases in the Nizamuddin basti itself”.

Nanda says the area is very socially diverse, with 10 distinct mohallas, ranging from the wealthy blocks of

Nizamuddin West to the extremely im-poverished tenements where as many as 10 people may be crammed together in a single room. “So inevitably, they will spill onto the street at some point, where the police may go after them,” he says. Although the government is or-ganising periodic deliveries of rations by truck, these may not be reaching everyone. “The rations only come to

people who can access delivery notices on the internet,” says former Delhi mayor Farhad Suri. He is particularly peeved about the police allegedly ob-structing a community initiative to provide cooked meals to more than 200 needy families in the area. The young men who tried to deliver these meals have been beaten on several occasions, alleges Suri. Meanwhile the Aga Khan Foundation has begun dis-tributing packets of rations to needy families this week.

For the authorities, people’s tendency to flout social distancing and lockdown rules poses practical challenges. But Raju Korde, a social worker in Dharavi, points towards the “unavoidable circumstances” behind such behaviour by the slum’s residents. “Their houses are like tinderboxes with no proper ventilation. They go out to breathe fresh air,” says Korde. It is no different in the ghetto-like conditions

A smooth supply of daily essentials is critical for any containment zone

to succeed. Like in Hyderabad, where state canteens are offering

subsidised meals to the poor

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of several Muslim-dominated clus-ters, such as Mallepally in Hyderabad and Sher Galli in Secunderabad.

Confinement brings in logistical problems for the people. Life remains paralysed in Bimbisar Nagar, in Mumbai’s Goregaon (East) suburb, as the entire area, housing eight apartment complexes and close to 2,000 people, has been turned into a containment zone. Manisha S., 43, who works in a private company, says she is too scared to step out of her third-floor apartment using the stair-case or the elevator. “I had ordered groceries online, but could not have them delivered as no outsider can enter our society,” she says. Another resident, 36-year-old homemaker Lalita Tiwari, says people realised the importance of isolation only when the residential society was declared a containment zone. “Even the elderly people used to go out for walks. Now, they are staying put at home and advising others too not to venture about,” says Tiwari.

In Maharashtra, which has reg-istered more positive cases than any other state, a team of five—two doc-tors, a nurse and two health officials—are deputed to each containment zone to regularly screen residents and take those showing COVID-19 symptoms for testing. The protocol recommends daily surveillance by a two-member health team of 30-50 households in the cluster to identify suspected cases. This is easier said than done because there aren’t enough professional health workers, with surveillance experience in malaria, tuberculosis or other public health campaigns, around. In several areas, district collectors, who are the nodal officers entrusted with efficiently running all containment zones in their adminis-

� The cluster containment strategy is meant to contain the novel coronavirus within a defined geographical area through early detection of cases and breaking the chain of transmission. States mark specific areas, covering households, as containment zones or clusters.

� The containment zones are determined by state health authorities based on the number of positive cases and the number of people the infected came in contact with. A containment zone is usually the ‘epicentre’ (residence of the infected person) and an area of unspecified extent around it; can be redefined if there is a spurt in cases.

� The containment zone is surrounded by a buffer zone—an additional 5 km radius area in the urban belts and 7 km in the rural areas. The zone is divided into sectors of 50 houses each (30 in ‘difficult’ areas).

COVID CHECKPOINTSHow outbreak containment clusters designed

to check the spread of COVID-19 work

MARKING OUT THE ZONES

NO-GO ZONE Police enforce the nationwide

lockdown in Delhi’s Dilshad GardenQAMAR SIBTAIN/MAIL TODAY

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trative jurisdiction, have been forced to rope in revenue and police person-nel to overcome the staff shortage.

TRUST DEFICITOften, health workers avoid going for the intensive daily surveys and wait for suspected cases to emerge in the containment zones. The failure to establish trust and gain people’s con-fidence is another hindrance. A doctor in Bhopal recalls, “We went house to house in Professor’s Colony, the first containment cluster announced in

Bhopal. But most people did not want to meet us. Also, the containment zone was announced five days after a case was reported. The damage had already been done.” In Dharavi, when BMC officials found several residents reluctant to open up to the visiting medical teams, they enlisted some 150 local doctors to encourage the people to come forward.

Officials who manage clusters say physical containment of people is of-ten the easier part, the real challenge being to identify suspected cases who, fearing testing, hospitalisation

and social stigma, may not be forth-coming. The way to go forward is to successfully isolate positive cases, test all those they came in contact with, identify those with symptoms and scale up random testing. This will require stringent implementa-tion of the screening and testing protocol, particularly in the crowded clusters, and abundant supply of reli-able testing kits. The Delhi govern-ment says it will soon start rapid testing in the city’s containment zones and is procuring 100,000 kits for the purpose. Unless other states show similar intent, the national lockdown will fail to serve its critical purpose of limiting the spread of the deadly coronavirus. �

—with Kiran D. Tare, Sonali Acharjee, Rahul Noronha, Gulam

Jeelani, Rohit Parihar, Romita Dutta and Amitabh Srivastava

� The district collector is the nodal officer for cluster containment in each district and is assisted by a team of health workers

� If there is a paucity of professional workers, volunteers, including from the National Service Scheme (NSS) and National Cadet Corps (NCC), are roped in. They are briefed about their roles and responsibilities.

� The frontline health workers ensure that the contacts of

positive/ suspected cases are home-quarantined and wear

three-layered surgical masks at all times. Their families are briefed about the precautions to be taken.

� The workers and medical officers are entrusted

with transferring suspected COVID-19 cases by ambulance to

one of the listed health facilities for testing. Thereafter, their

contacts are line-listed.

� The supervisory officer informs the control room about all contacts

of confirmed/ suspected cases along with their addresses. These contacts are tracked down for the

14-day home-quarantine. However, they are monitored for COVID-19 symptoms for a total of 28 days.

If a contact lives outside the containment zone, the designated

official of that area is informed.

� The supervisory medical officer collates data from the door-to-door surveillance and shares it with the control room daily

� The frontline team for real-time reporting of new cases consists of accredited social health activists (ASHA), auxiliary nurse midwives (ANM) and anganwadi workers. They do house visits, maintain a list of suspected and confirmed cases, identify the primary contacts of these cases and inform the supervisory medical officer.

PROTOCOL AND ACTION

A stringent implementation of the screening and testing protocol is now needed, particularly in the

crowded containment zones

C O V E R S T O R Y

P H O T O F E AT U R E

GEARED FOR BATTLEMedical professionals across the globe are on the front-lines in the war against COVID-19. Earmarked on April 4 as a dedicated hospital for corona patients, Delhi’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital is handling the largest number of cases—780—in the city. A look inside reveals the hardships the doctors are facing, but also their steely determination to overcome the odds

Photographs By PANKAJ NANGIA

Text by SONALI ACHARJEE

Two doctors at LNJP tend to a COVID-19 patient. It is emotionally exhausting. “I saw a woman die of air hunger,” says Dr Richa Narang, the resident anesthesiologist. “COVID-19’s attack on the body has left me shocked. It depletes the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood. No matter how much oxygen we gave her, she couldn’t breathe. She died alone, with no family or friends by her side.”

1. A doctor gets into PPE coveralls. Every building at LNJP has been converted into a quarantine facility. There are 1,500 beds, including 66 for critical care, and 45 ventilators. Each one of the hospital’s 1,000

resident doctors is on call, along with every postgrad-uate student, junior resident and consultant. “It is all hands on deck. We have a 14-day shift of 8-12 hours,

followed by a 14-day quarantine,” says Dr Dinesh Singh. All healthcare workers have to take preventive

doses of hydroxychloroquine, which can have side effects. “Most people are fine but a few have reported

palpitations,” says Dr. Narang.

2. COVID-19 patients can be released only after they test negative for two tests within 24 hours

once symptoms subside. There is no respite for the doctors, though. “We have a shortage of PPE kits in

the general quarantine wards, especially for nurses, orderlies and sweepers,” says Dr Sarvari Damaraju, a non-PG, junior resident. “With some 60 patients in each quarantine room, the viral load is tremendous.”

Doctors estimate LNJP has about 6,000 PPE kits (although there is no official count available); they

have to wear a fresh set daily. 2

3. “I have not seen my parents or been home in three months,” says Dr Narang, who lives in Kaushambi, 15 kilometres away

from the hospital. “They are both heart patients and I don’t want to be a risk to them,” says the doctor, who has been on

eight-hour shifts in the ICU for the past 16 days. “Most of the patients in the ICU are old and very scared. We have been

treating them based on symptoms, usually a combination of Tamiflu, azithromycin, HCQ, Augmentin and lopinavir/ ritonavir.

They beg us to help them breathe, but we are helpless against the virus,” she says.

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1. A 15-year-old boy is the

only minor among the 780 COVID patients at LNJP.

Though asymptomatic, he has tested positive for the virus. He spends his time talking to the staff and on his phone. “He is not un-

well, but I had to explain to him that he could make me unwell since I do not have protective coveralls, only a mask,” says a nurse who does not wish to be named or photographed. “Some-

times, even gloves are hard to get. I handle infected

glasses, clothes, utensils. I need money for my family. I

won’t get another job if I leave here.”

2. Patients read namaaz in an

LNJP ward. “Those from the Tablighi Jamaat markaz

gathering outnumber all patients. They are brought here in packed buses. The

asymptomatic ones are an-gry to be here. There is no medication for COVID-19 unless you have symp-

toms,” says Dr Damaraju. Of the 1,561 positive cases in Delhi, 1,080 have been linked to the gathering in Nizamuddin. They were

initially sent to quarantine facilities where they are

being tested. “Conditions can deteriorate quickly,

especially among the elderly” adds Damaraju.

3. An LNJP doctor at the Hotel LaLit in Delhi. On

completing their 14-day work period, residents and junior residents are

kept for two weeks at the LaLit. Here, they catch up on their studies, speak to

their friends and family and try to process the

realities of their lives for the next few months.

“Everything has changed for medical workers. It

is mentally draining, but as doctors, we know our duty. What we need most

right now is protection from assault and from

infection within the hos-pital,” says Dr Narang.

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A PR I L 2 7, 2020 INDIA TODAY 45

How Kerala Flattened the Curve

The southern state’s pandemic fighting skillsand fabled healthcare system have helped it beat back COVID-19. What others can learnfrom its example

By Jeemon Jacob

On January 23, when Kerala’s health minister K.K. Shailaja chaired a high-level meeting of her department officials, worry lines had begun creasing her brow. China had announced a lockdown in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province. Hundreds of students from Kerala were studying for professional courses in Wuhan, and there were fears they would carry the virus back to the state. The

sprightly health minister, who had been at the forefront of the state’s battle against the Nipah virus in 2018, had the task of drafting the action plan against a possible novel coronavirus outbreak. Three medical students from the Wuhan Institute of Medical Sciences had returned to their homes in Alappuzha, Thrissur and Kasargod that day and were in home quarantine. A week later, on January 30, when one of the three became India’s ‘patient zero’, the state was prepared.

A control room had been set up on January 23 itself at the General Hospital premises in Thiruvananthapuram. The state machinery had its strategy in place to counter the spread of the infection, but there was every reason to worry.

SWAB CENTREA walk-in COVID-19

sample kiosk at Ernakulam Medical

College, Kochi

ARUN CHANDRABOSE/ GETTY IMAGES

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4 6 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

Kerala is connected to the world in a way few other Indian states are. It has an expatriate population of 2.5 million people and four international airports servicing over 17 million passengers every year. A population density of 819 people per square kilometre makes it India’s eighth most densely popu-lated state. But it also had two trump cards—a world-class healthcare system and experience in containing the 2018 outbreak of the lethal Nipah virus.

Today, January 30 appears to be a lifetime away. Over 128,000 people have since died across the world of COVID-19, 392 of them in India. Even as the disease begins to spike across the country, prompting an extension of the 21-day lockdown till May 3, Kerala is one of the few states that has managed to flatten the disease curve. The state has so far lost only three people to the infection. Of the 387 infected, 211 have recovered fully. On April 13, it reported just two new cases. The state has a recovery rate of 84 per cent, compared to 14 per cent in the rest of the country. It hasn’t been an easy struggle and the aftereffects will endure. The lockdown has reduced its

major revenue streams—overseas remit-tances, revenues from the sale of alcohol, tourism and sale of lottery tickets—to a trickle. Preliminary estimates suggest the state could incur a revenue loss of Rs 50,000 crore (FY2021) due to the CO-VID-19 crisis. According to state finance minister Dr Thomas Isaac, the lockdown period itself has led to a revenue loss of Rs 4,980 crore (based on revenue collec-tions for March-April 2019).

The state’s exemplary social indica-tors led to the coinage ‘Kerala Model’ in the 1970s, to note how a low-income state with high literacy rates and healthy citizens boasted a standard of living comparable to life in the devel-oped nations. In 2018, it earned praise from the World Health Organization for ‘achieving impressive health outcomes

at modest incomes compared to the rest of the states in India’. Kerala has consistently topped the country in the overall health index—from low neonatal mortality rates to total fertility rate. This is when it has the same number of hospital beds to people—1.05 per 1,000 people—as national capital Delhi does.

Yet, it was more than just its fabled world-class healthcare system that delivered tangible results. What helped the state of 34 million people was a combination of factors. A leadership that geared itself up to tackle a pan-demic with contingency plans and then relentlessly followed it up with commu-nication strategies and social mobilisa-tion even as it set up mechanisms to identify, isolate, test and treat the in-fected. Huge awareness campaigns were

Illustrations by RAJ VERMA

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10,000

Cases double

every 2 days

Cases double

every 5 days

Telangana

Delhi

Maharashtra

Kerala

Karnataka

Andhra Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh

Tamil Nadu

Log scale

1,000

Number of days passed after 100 cases

Data as of 5 pm, April 10, 2020Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India Today Data Intelligence Unit

1000 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

Ahead of the CurveKerala’s COVID-19 infection rates are now near

rock bottom. The lockdown has helped too

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A PR I L 2 7, 2020 INDIA TODAY 47

kicked off and hundreds of thousands of health workers dispatched through the 14 districts of the state to fight the epidemic. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi likened COVID-19 to a world war, Kerala was already on the frontlines. The Kerala Model 2.0 is a story the rest of the world can well take lessons from.

ANTICIPATING THE PANDEMICKerala was battle-inoculated against viruses in 2018. In May that year, it grappled with South India’s first case of Nipah virus, which often leads to acute respiratory distress, encephalitis, seizures and coma in its patients within 24 to 48 hours. The mortality rate was estimated at between 40 and 75 per cent.

The virus, thought to have travelled from the fruit bat to humans, spread rapidly through the two northern dis-tricts of Kozhikode and Malappuram with 17 deaths and 18 confirmed cases. The state health machinery acted fast with then Union health minister J.P. Nadda and Chief Minister Pina-rayi Vijayan leading the day-to-day outbreak analysis and response. Key learnings in the fight were a focus on infection prevention and control

measures based on isolating patients, the use of personal protection equip-ment and decontaminating surfaces. The WHO praised Kerala for ‘relying on the strengths of its health system to contain the outbreak. The leadership and commitment of all levels of Indian health authorities were seen’.

What also helped was the ramped-up spending on healthcare—Rs 5,000 crore over the past five years. Since 2016, the state government has focused on developing infrastructure at government hospitals, right from the primary health centres (PHCs) to medical colleges. Around 600 doctors and 1,500 nurses were appointed in this period (fresh ap-pointment orders for 276 doctors from the Public Service Commission rank list were issued on March 24). New build-ings were constructed even as the state charted a plan to get National Quality Assurance Standard (NQAS) accredita-tion for government hospitals. This year alone, 12 of them got NQAS certifica-tion. Hospital development committ-ees were constituted to monitor their functioning. The state also introduced ‘star ratings’ for its PHCs.

In January, as evidence began mou-nting of a large-scale pandemic, Kerala was already off the blocks. The state

identified four priorities—checking com-munity spread of the infection, insulat-ing doctors, nurses and paramedical staff, home quarantining high-risk category people to break the chain and, finally, putting the state under high surveillance against the infection.

When the three medical students from Wuhan arrived, the state imme-diately placed them in isolation wards. Their fellow travellers on the Kolkata-Kochi flight were identified and also home quarantined. “Our battle began when the first travellers from Wuhan arrived in the state on January 23,” says Shailaja. On February 3, as a third patient tested positive for COVID-19, Kerala declared the virus a state calam-ity. It helped the government put col-lectors as point persons in the districts with magisterial powers to mobilise all manpower and logistics at their disposal. The battle had now escalated into a war.

IDENTIFY, TEST, ISOLATE On February 3, the state government requested the National Institute of Virology, Pune, to set up a testing facility at its field unit in Alappuzha to facili-tate speedy testing for COVID-19. The state health department constituted three task forces—planning, execution and monitoring—to reinforce its battle against the disease. Principal secretary, health, Dr Rajan Khobragade was the coordinator for all the three task forces.

The state issued guidelines to health workers and others on the frontlines about COVID-19 symptoms and alerted them about how it could be mis-taken for viral fever or a common cold. Helplines were set up in all districts and the government appealed to the people who had returned from Wuhan or other Chinese territories to remain home quarantined for 28 days. The state also started testing and screening high-risk people who were in the contact lists of the infected on January 25. A team of doctors started contact tracking and home quarantined all contacts in the first phase. Above all, the chief minister

Our battle began when

the first travellers from Wuhan arrived in the state on January 23”

—K.K. SHAILAJAHealth minister, Kerala

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directed local self-government bodies to get involved and scan their localities for people who had returned from the infected countries after January 14.

By January 30, the date when ‘patient zero’ was confirmed, the govern-ment had begun setting up isolation wards in all medical colleges, general and district hospitals. Doctors and nurs-ing staff were deployed across the state after training. The government also set up 12 testing labs to enable early identifi-cation of COVID-19 patients.

The health department provided personal protective equipment (PPE) to all caregivers and paramedical staff and issued guidelines for sample coll ection, handling of swabs and testing proce-dures. Early screening had helped the three patients with COVID-19 to swiftly recover. On February 13, their tests turned negative and became a morale booster for the health department. “But we decided to continue our vigil as a large number of passengers were still coming in from the Gulf and other coun-tries. We feared that despite the screen-ing at all four airports, someone with an infection would slip through,” says

Dr R.L. Saritha, director, state health services. There were many anxious mo-ments after March 8 when an NRI fam-ily from Italy returned to the state on a domestic flight without declaring that they had come back from Europe.

The family triggered off the second phase of the COVID-19 outbreak. They arrived in Kochi on February 29, travelled to their village in Pathana-mthitta district by car and visited several locations, including a local bar. Their primary contact list included over 800 people in three districts. Nearly 250 families in a single district were sent into home quarantine after seven members of the family tested positive for COVID-19.

The state had been anticipating community spread of the infection any time and had prepared an action plan. Soon, the health department notified 28 hospitals, including medical coll-eges, as COVID-19 specialty hospitals in the state. Meanwhile, four more testing centres opened in the state. “We decided to intensify surveillance across the state and charted a plan B and C for the future. We realised we had to set up corona care homes to quaran-tine passengers arriving from foreign countries and other states,” says the health minister. The state government identified hostels, educational institu-tions and unoccupied buildings and set up 635 corona care centres for isolation. Apart from this, around 125,000 rooms have been designated as isolation wards to accommodate suspected cases of CO-VID-19 during the quarantine period.

Today, anyone who enters the state has to undergo mandatory isolation. The period is 14 days if the traveller is coming from another state, and 28 days if he/ she is coming from outside the country (a Gulf returnee in Kannur tested positive on the 26th day, April 14, after arrival). “We have followed global norms and a targeted approach in this battle against COVID-19,” says Dr B. Ekbal, Kerala Planning Board member and a public health expert. Kerala has conducted 17,400 tests as on April 16.

The state introduced a lockdown on March 23 before it hit the 100 infections mark. The 21-day national lockdown came at a critical point for the state, government officials say. Else, there would have been a fresh wave of infections from its returning emigres.

SOCIAL DISTANCINGKerala promoted social distancing and use of masks by the public from January 30, the first state in the country to do so. A state calamity was declared on February 3. Schools and colleges were closed on March 10. The same day, the government appealed to all religious groups to cancel community gather-ings at religious places after the second outbreak in Pathanamthitta district.

On March 15, as the number of infections in the state touched 95, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan convened a video conference with religious leaders of all faiths. The Christians readily agreed to close their churches. Muslim leaders also appealed to the community to stop daily prayers at the mosques. The Hindu temples closed down despite March and April being festival season in Kerala. Beginning March 10, all temple festivals had anyway been cancelled in the state. The few religious leaders who violated the code saw police cases

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 �INDIA TODAY �49

slapped against them. The government also used the media effectively. On March 15, the ‘Break the Chain’ cam-paign was launched to check the spread of infections and promote social dis-tancing and personal hygiene practices.

Social media played a pivotal role in the success of these campaigns. Superstars like Mammootty, Mohanlal and other popular actors promoted the campaigns on their Facebook pages. Youth organisations, merchant associa-tions, resident associations, they all joined the ‘Break the Chain’ campaign. Even the Kerala police got into the act, with dance videos promoting masks and drone footage set to film music. “Washing hands, wearing masks and social distancing became the thumb rule for Kerala after March 15. Every-one followed it in the right spirit,” says Varghese Madassery, 49, an NRI businessman in Kochi.

FOCUSED APPROACHOn February 18, Kerala constituted three high-level committees and ex-pert groups to advise the government on COVID-19. Among their members were specialist doctors, virologists, di-saster management experts, software professionals, hospital administra-tors, former civil servants and retired defence personnel.

Also set up was a special monitoring group headed by R. Mohan, secretary to the chief minister, and officer on special

duty (OSD) M. Sivasankar. State chief secretary Tom Jose was directed to co-ordinate with various departments and the Centre. At 3 pm every day, a dossier containing consolidated reports of state-wide activities lands on the CM’s table before he begins his review meeting. The assembly session was also cut short on March 13 and legislators requested to undertake COVID-19 awareness activi-ties in their constituencies.

Amid all these efforts, two northern districts—Kasargod and Kannur—be-came a health challenge for the state. These districts today account for 77 per cent of the infections in the state, mainly because of the huge presence of

returning NRIs in the district. Their re-luctance to follow social distancing and the quarantine code triggered the infec-tion levels in the districts. The situation improved only after the district admin-istrations intensified surveillance.

The state government has also now set up a dedicated COVID-19 hospital at the Kasargod Medical College to plug any deficiencies in the system. With 34 COVID-19 cases reported in a single day (March 27), the district

had reported the single biggest spike in coronavirus cases in the state.

PEOPLE POWERA mere government-led top-down approach would never have succeeded without the social mobilisation in the state. The state set up a 250,000-strong volunteer force in just two days on March 26. Over the next three days, these volunteers (all in the 22-40 age group and without criminal records) were made eligible for working with their respective local government bodies. After a brief training schedule, they are assigned voluntary work commensu-rate with their qualifications. The work includes being standby ambulance driv-ers, and nurses and paramedical staff to assist the 3,000-strong health work-force. Others are deplo yed to deliver food packets to the poor or keep surveillance on those under home quarantine. All of it is voluntary, with no one getting paid anything apart from a travel allowance.

Starting March 26, the state also set up 18,828 camps for its ‘guest workers’—the migrant labour from other states. Over 300,000 people are being hosted in the camps and provided free food and medical care. The state has set up 1,255 community kitchens; 280,000 food packets are distributed daily. Free ra-tion kits of 35 kilos of rice and Rs 1,000 worth of essential commodities have gone out to 3.69 million families.

All this would not have been possible without the cooperation of civil society, the vigilant state police force and com-munity volunteers. CM Vijayan admits as much while explaining how the state lowered the infection curve. But there will be no lowering of the guard. District administrations will remain on high alert till mid-May. “We will continue our vigil till the last patient recovers and completes the quarantine period,” the chief minister told INDIA TODAY. Kerala was one of the states which backed the Centre’s plan to extend the lockdown. The chief minister believes the next four weeks are critical. Complacency, clearly, has no place in Kerala Model 2.0. �

Kerala will continue its

vigil till the last patient recovers and completes the quarantine

period”—PINARAYI VIJAYAN

Chief Minister, Kerala

MSMEs are the lifeblood of the Indian economy. This sector

needs much greater support to survive the lockdown

By SHWWETA PUNJ

he indirect impact of COVID-19 will be as brutal as the lives the pandemic itself might claim. One of the starker changes, already in plain view, is that millions of small estab-lishments will be out of business—among them perhaps your favourite restaurant, the salon next door, the local tailor, the roadside juicewala—businesses that were an integral

part of your everyday existence but don’t have the economic staying power to outlast this storm. MSMEs (micro, small and medium en-terprises) are the lifeblood of the Indian economy, employing about 120 million, contributing 33.4 per cent of India’s manufacturing output and making up 45 per cent of India’s exports. Even so, they are also among the most vulnerable—relying heavily on day-to-day business to stay afloat and more exposed to the vagaries of demand than their larger counterparts. It goes unsaid that they have minimal reserves to dip into in times of trouble.

S. Jayaprasad, 49, downed the shutters of his small Mumbai-based firm on March 19, when the government ordered all private businesses closed. His firm, Michael Gunnis, exports metal parts

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

63.4MILLION

The number of MSMEs in India

T

C O V E R S T O R Y

M S M E S

33.4%Contribution of MSMEs to

manufacturing output

120MILLION

Approximate number of people employed by MSMEs

45%Contribution of MSMEs to

India’s overall exports

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HK harbanda’s 41-year-old

company has three factories in Noida and

Greater Noida. A month ago, he was getting orders ready for shipment to the US and Europe. Nearly 90 per cent of the company’s revenues come from apparel and home furnishing exports. He says orders worth Rs 16 crore have been cancelled. “The plague of 1994 in Surat saw

order cancellations too,” he says, “but this is by far the worst I have seen in the past 25 years.” With 40 per cent of his labourers having returned to their villages, Kharbanda says his big worry is how to resume operations once the lockdown is lifted. He antici-pates that he will have to let go of 60 per cent of his labour force in the short term.

—Shwweta Punj

AMITABH KHARBANDA, 4 8Sunlord Apparels, Noida

Worse than the Plague

52 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

to construction outfits in west Asia. He says the shutdown left him unable to execute orders that were to be shipped by March-end: “We are worried about our clients, and are unsure if they will continue with us after the lockdown.” He says that firms like his need im-mediate support in deferring fixed costs like electricity. Although he has a small team of four, he also worries about pay-ing wages: “Over time, even [sustain-ing] that becomes painful—salaries form 40 per cent of our overall cost.”

The biggest challenge for small business owners has been dwindling operating capital. The lockdown has left them with a pile of expenses—util-ity bills, rents, salaries. On the other hand, payments owed to these units are stuck, creating a double squeeze.

Rhea Mazumdar Singhal is the CEO of Ecoware, a sustainable food packaging company that employs about 120 people at a factory in Greater Noida. Her clients include major firms like fast-food chain Haldirams and the Indian Railways. She says that payments of up to Rs 1 crore have been delayed, and that while she has man-aged to pay salaries for March, doing the same in April will be a challenge.

In his address to the nation on April

14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi repeated an appeal his government has frequently made to businesses since the lockdown began—that employees not be fired or have their salaries cut. But exasperated business owners ask how this is even possible. Complicating matters is that authorities have issued official notifications on the subject. For instance, in a letter dated March 20, by Kalpana Rajsinghot, joint secretary at the Union ministry for labour and em-ployment, employers’ associations were advised to ‘extend their coordination by not terminating employees, particularly casual or contractual workers or reduc-ing their wages’, and that ‘if a place of employment is made non-operational due to COVID-19, employees will [still] be deemed to be on duty.’

Official orders or not, business own-ers are running out of options. Singhal says she has no choice but to consider salary cuts and reductions in employee numbers. Others say much the same. Amitabh Kharbanda of Sunlord Appar-els, a textile exporter, says he will have to let 60 per cent of his workers go, and that much of his current production run is now ‘dead stock’—textiles is a fashion-sensitive seasonal market, and having missed deliveries for this season,

his stock has lost most of its value.On April 15, businesses were

given some relief. The government an-nounced certain relaxations of the lock-down, including permitting the opera-tions of IT and IT-enabled services (up to 50 per cent strength), e-commerce companies, courier services, industries operating in rural areas, manufactur-ing and other industrial establishments in special economic zones, export-ori-ented units, and industrial estates and townships. This has been permitted with a caveat that transportation and accommodation facilities on site must be provided for workers.

Other sectors that have been given permission to start operations from April 20 include rural food processing

units, manufacturing of IT hardware, coal production, manufacturing of packaging material, the jute industry, brick kilns and construction activities, including of MSMEs in rural areas, among others However, the ambiguity of geographical limits prescribed in the notification—which stated that these relaxations applied to units outside municipal areas—has left industry

ABHIJEET PATIL, 4 5Raja Rani Travels, Mumbai

Cancelled Bookings

P atil’s company employs 25 peo-ple, working with companies and celebrities in Bollywood

to manage their overseas travels and film shoots and with tourists inter-ested in film tourism. (His agency was one of the pioneers of film tourism in India.) In 2019, he organised nearly 200 tours. In 2020, nearly all his tours

have been cancelled. “We will not be able to recalibrate the travel plans as we are not sure whether the tourists would like to visit the same destination they had earlier chosen,” he says. His firm is cur-rently negotiating with airlines for refunds of cancellations, and he says he plans to focus on domes-tic, short-distance tours after the lockdown has lifted. He does not expect international tourists in the country for some time to come, and is hoping for a stimulus package for the tourism industry, one of the worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

—Kiran D. Tare

C O V E R S T O R Y

M S M E S

A PR I L 2 7, 2020 INDIA TODAY 53

� SalariesGovernment assistance has been sought for salary payments

� PF contributionsSuspension sought of provident fund contributions by employers and employees for three months for all MSMEs. The Federation of Indian Mi-cro and Small & Medium Enterprises says the government’s PF relief for units employing less than 100 work-ers and for salaries less than 15,000 will have limited impact

� Power billsWaiver sought for ‘demand’ and ‘fixed’ charges for three months

� Compliance datesAn automatic extension of compli-ance dates for all regulatory pay-ments—whether GST, income tax, house tax or others—to June

� Contractual obligations MSMEs supplying under government contracts want a reprieve from penal clauses for non-delivery due to the lockdown

� Declaration as NPAsTo spare MSMEs from being designated thus at this juncture, all measures announced by RBI to be made mandatory for banks

� DemurrageThe Rs 8,000 per day charge that ports impose after cargo has not been cleared for three days and shipping lines after 14 days should start applying two weeks after the lifting of lockdown over and above the standard period

LOCKDOWN CHALLENGESThe various pain points for MSMEs and the relief sought

RAJ KUMAR GARG, 61Aquila Furniture, Jaipur

Standing Idle

G arg’s firm has an annual turnover of about Rs 20 crore, and employs about 100 people. His monthly expenses during the lockdown—salaries, wages, interest and rent—come to about

Rs 20 lakh. He says payments worth crores are stalled and that he is at risk of losing customers. Nonetheless, letting go of labour is not an option. “Any wise factory owner will retain manpower, so as to restart work immediately after the lockdown ends. But I do not know how long we can survive. I hope the government allows [on-site] staff to work for a few hours [a day] without exposure to outsiders.” He suggests the government enable this by ensuring regular site visits by doctors, or by making it binding on factory owners to ensure that all workers are healthy.

—Rohit Parihar

confused. For example, in Delhi, most industrial areas are within municipal limits. Anil Bhardwaj, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, says, even with the relaxations, it will take until the first week of May to get operations running again, and this notification largely impacts players in the formal economy. “For instance, in Delhi, 70 per cent of the industry is in areas like Paharganj and Karol Bagh, among others,” he points out.

However, even as the battered sector waits for a stimulus from the

government and clarifications on its notifications, the relaxations have come as a relief, and the industry is back to planning and executing post-COVID strategies. According to an assessment by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, the relaxations will help restart about 80-85 per cent of manufacturing units geared towards exports. If these units are able to start operations by end April or early May, it would leave them in a better position to pay wages for May. Further, industries like food processing and construction and those in rural areas are all labour-

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C O V E R S T O R Y

M S M E S

ECONOMY

intensive, and restarting them would allow migrant labourers to begin earn-ing again. Allowing transport, ware-housing and cold storage would ensure a smoother functioning of the supply chain. Steps like these are essential to India’s exit strategy from what has been the most stringent lockdown imposed anywhere in the world.

INTERVENTIONS SO FARIn a speech in the Rajya Sabha on March 19, India’s Union MSME minister Nitin Gadkari noted the chal-lenges facing this sector. Referring to a meeting with Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the heads of major banks, he said that credit outflow was discussed in detail. “It is true that banks [aren’t giving] loans easily,” he conceded, saying that his ministry was reviewing data of loans sanctioned at the district level. In an address to Par-liament, he said the Government was underwriting bank loans to SMEs up to 75 per cent, and in some cases, even 100 per cent. “I have a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore for these guarantees, so, in effect, banks can only ask for collateral on 25 per cent of the amount,” he said.

Gadkari also said that under the government’s credit guarantee scheme—launched in 2000 to provide collateral-free credit, then with limited participation from the financial sector and a total corpus of Rs 2,500 crore—financial institutions across the board, from scheduled commercial banks to NBFCs (non-banking financial companies) have been asked to extend credit to MSMEs. On a related note, the RBI has also announced a three-month moratorium on loans, saying that all commercial, regional, rural NBFCs and small finance banks were permit-ted to allow three-month moratoriums on payment of instalments for all term loan EMIs outstanding on March 31.

To ease the flow of credit, the RBI has also reduced repo rates by 75 basis points (0.75 per cent) and the reverse repo rate by 90 basis points (0.9 per

cent). And to ease the financial strain on employers, the Government has an-nounced that it will fund both employer and employee contributions to provi-dent funds, for firms with less than 100 workers and for employees earning less than Rs 15,000, for three months.

However, execution remains a major problem. A number of small business owners complain that banks have not extended the RBI’s morato-rium voluntarily and that it takes a lot of negotiation to secure this relief. Also, this three-month reprieve is not a waiv-er—and will, in fact, accrue additional interest, which means that borrowers

will end up paying additional EMIs if they avail of it. And some say the provident fund waiver, while welcome, is not substantive relief. Businesses also complain of soaring insurance premiums, saying that some payments have increased by 200-300 per cent; they have pleaded for the moratorium on interest payments to be extended to cover insurance companies as well.

MOVING FORWARDSources in the MSME ministry say that officials are working on identifying the problems on both generic and sector-specific levels. For instance, some sec-tors have had problems getting curfew

passes during the lockdown, while others cannot possibly restart business without financial assistance.

On one frequently identified problem—paying utility bills—officials in Gadkari’s ministry say they have been in touch with their counterparts in the ministry of power. While the central electricity regulatory commis-sion issued a circular on the waiver of utility bills, state electricity regulatory commissions have yet to follow suit. “Consumers not paying power distrib-uting companies (discoms) but discoms continuing to pay power-generating companies will not work,” explains a se-nior ministry source. He also says that interventions to ease the pain are run-ning into “unforeseen difficulties”. For instance, the State Bank of India has designed a new loan product to issue credit to existing borrowers. However, the paperwork for this requires pay-ment of stamp duty, which is challeng-ing, to say the least, during a lockdown. This has held up the entire initiative.

Ministry sources say that they are also looking at other ways to address the problems MSMEs face, such as through the Employees State Insur-ance Act, under which, if a worker is on medical leave, the Employees State Insurance Corporation can be tapped to pay salaries. The corporation has a corpus of Rs 75,000 crore, which can be utilised to meet the rising demand for state support in paying wages.

“Small is beautiful. Small is power-ful. Small is wonderful,” said Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, on the future trend of businesses, highlighting the need to support MSMEs. And there is much the government can do—like relaxing NPA norms and getting banks to extend working capital loans, says Bhardwaj.

Restoring pre-COVID levels of purchase could take six months or more. And until then, businesses and workers need to brace for drastic cuts in demand, salaries and jobs. But with speedy action, the government could significantly ease the damage. ■

—with inputs from M.G. Arun

I have a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore to guarantee bank loans to MSMEs. In effect, banks can only ask for collateral on 25 per cent of the loan amount”—NITIN GADKARIUnion minister for MSMEs

S M A R T E D U C A T I O N

Novel opportunities for fresh graduates

OUT OF THE BOX JOBS

Illustration by RAJ VERMA

56 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

T R E N D SS M A R T E D U C A T I O N

What the top performing sectors are looking for in fresh graduates—and what they offer

WINDOW TO THE FUTURE

C O M P I L E D B Y S H E L L Y A N A N D A N D M R I N I D E V N A N I

In addition to the typi-cal competencies—an analytical mindset, drive and critical thinking—one

key skill that has become a differentiator in the corpo-rate world is navigation. It’s a combination of street smarts and the ability to influence without authority. Digital and analytics skills also attract significant pay premiums. Advanced technology and en-gineering skills relating to ar-tificial intelligence, machine learning and the Internet of Things have also become critical for companies. At the same time, cost-conscious-ness has taken centre stage

post COVID-19. While com-panies looking to hire might find these resources available in abundance in the talent pipeline, on the other hand, a lot of organisations may want to restrict their expenditure on trainee management. �

MANAGEMENT

HOW TO INFLUENCE PEOPLEANANDORUP GHOSE Partner, Deloitte India, Delhi

NAVIGATION IS CRITICAL—A COMBINATION

OF STREET SMARTS AND THE ABILITY

TO INFLUENCE WITHOUT

AUTHORITY

LEADERS OF TOMORROW

Graduates need to be go-getters

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5 8 INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

The current trend in the engi-neering sector is the emer-gence of functional areas such

as cloud services, data science, blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning. It is projected that by 2022, we will move to cloud services worldwide and there will be an increased need for data researchers, application develop-ers, technical support engineers, robotics engineers and analytical experts. At workplaces, there are two clear shifts that are drawing the demand for new hires for fresh roles. While there is a large-scale decline in mundane roles across the sector, there is growth in new products and services—artificial

intelligence-related jobs are being created. The industry has evolved over the years from just being a structural and business-oriented model to a constantly changing landscape. Today, graduates need to not only get themselves a degree but also develop soft skills and technical knowhow to increase their chances of getting hired. That’s what we look for in candidates during our campus placements at top engineering colleges like the IITs and other institutes in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. Graduates who have problem-solving skills, critical thinking abilities, a willingness to learn and can adapt well to changing environments always top the list. �

ENGINEERING

BUILDING A NEW WORLDMONA BHARADWAJ Head of university relations, IBM India, Bengaluru

BY 2022, WE WILL MOVE TO CLOUD SERVICES WORLDWIDE. THERE WILL BE AN INCREASED NEED FOR DATA RESEARCHERS, APP DEVELOPERS, TECHNICAL SUPPORT ENGINEERS, ROBOTICS ENGINEERS AND ANALYTICAL EXPERTS

S M A R T E D U C A T I O N

NUTS AND BOLTS

Technical know-how is key to success in the field

RA

JWA

NT R

AWAT

T R E N D S

The growth of the hospitality sec-tor in India, like all other indus-tries across the globe, has been

severely disrupted by the COVID-19 crisis. However, the sector is well-placed to rebuild itself when the crisis eases because it is full of opportunities.

Those graduating with degrees in hotel management can expect to find jobs in various roles across sectors, including restaurants, hotels and resorts, luxury lifestyle and retail and real estate, to name a few. The industry has a demand for employees with soft skills,

as well as the ability to incorporate a mindset of lifelong learning across verticals. Employers are looking for flexible talent, those who can adapt to different roles and situations easily. Communication skills, managing in-terpersonal relationships, networking, good manners, sportsmanship, team spirit and leadership are some of the abilities and skills that employers look for in candidates. �

MEDICINE

HEALING HANDS SAVITHA KUTTAN CEO, Omnicuris, Bengaluru

Robotics, telemedicine, ge-netic diagnosis and other technology-driven in-

novations are currently the most promising trends in the field of medicine. They can improve treatment outcomes, reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases and improve health-care infrastructure. Some of the most sought-after specialisa-

tions will be emergency and internal medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology, radiology, paedi-atrics, general surgery, ortho-paedic surgery and cardiology. Problem-solving, attention to detail and decision-making are some of the skills needed. Since the field is constantly evolving, a major requirement is step-ping out of one’s comfort zone to unlearn and relearn things. Seminars, conferences and continuing medical education platforms can help doctors stay up to date. Graduates should be able to work with people from all age groups and backgrounds, work well in a team and manage their time well. �

THE INDUSTRY HAS A DEMAND FOR EMPLOYEES WITH SOFT SKILLS AND THE ABILITY TO INCORPORATE A MINDSET OF LIFELONG LEARNING, ACROSS VERTICALS

PATIENTS ARE BECOMING ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS IN HEALTHCARE DECISIONS AND EXPECT CLEAR COMMUNICATION FROM THEIR DOCTORS

HOSPITALITY

SETTING THE TABLE DILIP PURI, founder and CEO, Indian School of Hospitality, Gurgaon

ICING ON THE CAKE

The industry looks for team spirit while hiring

RESEARCH LED Knowledge of the latest developments is essential

CHANDRADEEP KUMAR

YASIR IQBAL

T R E N D SS M A R T E D U C A T I O N

62 �INDIA TODAY A PR I L 2 7, 2020

T R E N D SS M A R T E D U C A T I O N

If you are a persuasive speaker, an effective listener and have an

eye for detail, law might be a rewarding career choice for you. The pro-fession is all about facts and figures, research and awareness. In order to be successful, your stepping stones would be writing ability and analytical skills and the ability to develop long-term relationships with clients and colleagues. There are opportunities for graduates across sectors,

such as in acquisitions, bankruptcy, arbitrations, employment and labour. Security breaches, phish-ing and data hacks are on the rise and lawyers will have a major role to play in addressing these

problems. Mediators for dispute resolution are also in demand. At the same time, cyber secu-rity, data protection, in-solvency and liquidation could be new fields with emerging opportunities. It is important for those studying law to have a client-centric approach and a knowledge of current developments in local, national and global businesses. Those well-versed with the regular amendments in law also have an advantage. �

LAW

LEGAL EAGLES GAURANG KANTH Managing Partner, Kanth & Associates, Delhi

THOSE WELL VERSED

WITH THE REGULAR

AMENDMENTS IN LAW WILL

HAVE AN ADVANTAGE

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Lawyers must know how to deal with clients in and out of court

Galgotias University is now known as

a diverse, interdisciplinary university

with innovative ecosystem of learning

comprising of distinguished faculty,

researchers and students. We believe in holistic

development of its students and empowering

them to face the challenges of corporate

world and become competitive professional

of International standards. The graduates

attributes like positive personality, critical

thinking, problem-solving approach, leading

by influence, agility and adaptability, initiative

and entrepreneurialism, effective oral and

written communication, accessing and analyzing

information, curiosity, imagination etc are few

of the qualities which we inculcate amongst

students in addition to strong base of knowledge

and fundamentals polishing with skills.These

skills are given to the students by exceptionally

trained faculty who are the best at what they do.

University provides extensive computing resources and

laboratories for education and research. We ensure that

FOCUSEDUCATION

the curriculum is designed by leading industries and

professionals and is unique combination of knowledge,

skills, behaviour and attitude. Logic building, critical

thinking, mandatory industry internships – to

experience live projects and hands on to know industry

environment and expectations, international exposer,

exposer to cutting edge technology, emerging trends

through choice based credit system are some of the

parameters which are taken care since induction and

ensured are being attained in each of the graduates.

According to Dr. (Ms.) Preeti Bajaj, Vice Chancellor, Galgotias University “When there are agencies to claim that only certain percentage of students are employable, we claim that 100% of our graduates in every program are not only employable but placed in all leading corporates. Looking at the current age of competitiveness, we have retuned the educational paradigms and are focusing on the areas that need rethinking. In today’s new world of fast changing technology, trends of being online 24 hours for work, fun for entertainment and education, we believe that students need to be trained and not taught. Information needs to be made accessible

and students need to learn how to find the learning and thinking skills rather than the teacher offering it to them in a rigid structure.”We also believe every student is unique and every

student needs different way of teaching and thrust

on different area and for this, we have adopted with

Choice Based Credit System which give them minimum

mandate and opportunity to grow towards excelling

in various domain like Artificial Intelligence(AI), Data

Science, IPR, and IOT, Industry 4.0, Electric Vehicle,

Smart Farming, World-class Leader, Modern Healthcare

practitioner. Industry 4.0 is nothing but Smart

Industry, Smart City, Smart People through Creativity.

We also believe everyone’s starting point might be

same but needs choices, aspirations and ending

point is different and for that extensive use of Digital

Technology, Career counsellors, helping students to

carve their goals and assisting them to achieve their

goals is integral part of Galgotias culture.

The courses available with the university with School

of Medical and Allied Sciences MLT, CVT, Physiotherapy

and Pharmacy are very much in demand in the

Healthcare Industry. The current period of covid-19

has shown the world- importance and opportunities

and demand of medical practitioners in the specialised

healthcare domains.

The school of hospitality ensures that the graduate

shall be globally competent and acquire specialized

knowledge in emerging technologies for creativity,

innovation and design of solutions in the various

domain of hospitality and allied services

School of Business ensures students are well prepared

with business analytics, economics and leadership

and managerial skills to emerge as ethical world class

leaders and practitioners in such challenging times

post the pandemic.

The school of Law ensures that their graduates

are enriched with comprehensive theoretical and

practical knowledge in indigenous as well as foreign

legal traditions, lawyering skills and research to meet

the contemporary challenges. It also prepares the

graduates to be lawyers of tomorrow for handling

legal issues that are not only restricted to the national

boundaries, but also cutting across complex cross-

border transactions, by developing legal skills in core

areas, such as Civil Laws, Criminal Laws, Corporate

Laws and IPR etc

“Today students are required to be given smart

education – the education which connects

with Technology, Employment, Creativity

and Innovation. At Galgotias we ensure that

the students are prepared for the future and

embrace the challenges of the future post the

COVID pandemic by adapting to the digital

world,” says Dhruv Galgotia, CEO, Galgotias University

SUNEEL GALGOTIAChancellor, Galgotias University

Smart Education In requisite to Education 4.0

Galgotias UniversityGreater Noida

“We are amongst the few Universities in Asia who have adopted the International standards of Outcome Based Education, and also having all kinds of modern pedagogies like Flipped classroom Teaching, Project-based Learning, Activity-based Learning, Case Studies methods and specially are tuned to Education 4.0”

says Suneel Galgotia, Chancellor, Galgotias University

E X P E R T V O I C E SS M A R T E D U C A T I O N

Hiring in haste just leads to chaos and disorganisation, says Canadian businessman and Flickr co-founder Daniel

Butterfield. Headhunters will agree—one wrong decision and an organisa-tion might find itself being stuck with someone who is not the correct fit.

So, what do human resource (HR) professionals look for in freshers while hiring, and what are the new fields where job prospects are the brightest? Two experts weigh in on the subject.

RAJ NARAYAN, CHIEF HUMAN

RESOURCES OFFICER, TITAN GROUP People should be themselves. If they put on an act, they will be found out. They must know their areas of expertise and think through how they will apply their knowledge in different situations.

TEAM SPIRIT: Freshers must have a positive, can-do attitude. Their views on life and career are important too. Working well in a group is key for us. In our organisation, the collective power

TALENT RUSHHaving a degree isn’t enough these days, recruiters are looking for soft skills, an

analytical mind and a willingness to unlearn

Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

B Y S H E L L Y A N A N D

of people trumps individual brilliance in most situations.

HIRING HUB: We hire freshers through the different campus programmes that we have—management trainees from leading B-schools, graduate engineer trainees from engineering colleges, design trainees from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmed-abad, and the three NIFTs, optometrist trainees, diploma engineer trainees and graduate trainees. Lateral recruitment is minimal. Analytics, design, customer relationship management, sales and marketing and technology are some new job areas.

SHIRIN SALIS, VICE-PRESIDENT, HR,

TRANE TECHNOLOGIES INDIA

While there’s a strong focus on diversity and machine learning, attention will be given to attract talent with transferable skills, a flexible workforce, as well as building and sharing missions. Most in demand will be expertise in technical areas such as cyber security, data sci-ence, deep learning along with design, project management, entrepreneurship and client interactions.

SKILL SETS: In interviews, hiring teams are looking for talent that can comple-ment the job profile and the company’s values. They need candidates with good communication skills so that they can express their ideas, are articulate and can resolve conflicts with confidence. Problem-solving skills, the ability to think neutrally and logically and a knack for coming up with quick, prag-matic solutions are pluses. Those who have high learning agility vis-a-vis new technologies and domain areas have an edge over others. WHAT’S IN DEMAND: Amid rising costs and competition, businesses are looking at hiring a job-ready workforce that comes equipped with emerging tech-nologies and is willing to upgrade their skills. Another focus area is a candi-date’s ability to apply the right technol-ogy to solve given problems. ■

WHETTING HER APPETITE

In her second innings as an entertainer, Neena Gupta says she is happy jumping platforms if the

roles she gets offered keep leaving her excited

66 Volume XLV Number 17; For the week April 21-27, 2020, published on every Friday Total number of pages 68 (including cover pages)

Q. A new hairstyle, head massages from the hus-band, pretty hillside views. What else have you

been up to during the lockdown?I am in my Mukteshwar home. I was supposed to be here

for a week, but the lockdown means we are stuck here. All is well; we have a view of the mountains, a garden to

ourselves and nobody around us. I am trying to write something with a writer through WhatsApp calls. But I

have started missing Bombay, home and work. I try to stay happy by telling myself that this tough phase will pass.

Q. In the Amazon Prime show Panchayat, you play a sarpanch

who has made peace with the fact that her husband will do her job.

How did you see Manju Devi?She is a typical woman whose life

revolves around her household, her hus-band and her daughter. She isn’t bothered

if her husband is doing the duties of a pradhan. Then somebody says something

that hits her hard and makes her think.

Q. Panchayat is your first web series. What do

you make of this fast-growing medium?

I will jump at any good role on any platform. As it is, at my age, you get very few good roles. In such

a scenario, whether it is a play, a TV show, web series or a short

film, I am very excited.

Q. A lot of old shows are being aired on Doordar-shan again. Is there one

you would like to revisit?I would like Star to telecast

Saans again. On DD Metro, I would love to watch my show

Dard again. From Doordarshan, I hope we get to see Hum Log,

Nukkad, Kora Kagaz, and Khandaan.

Q A

—with Suhani Singh

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