New Delhi:The Finance Ministry said that India’s economic recovery will depend on how the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds across states in the coming days, especially in industrialized states.
“The economic recovery is crucially linked to how the COVID-19 infection curve evolves across states. The emergence of new hotspots has led states and Union territories to enforce intermittent lockdowns. India’s top 12 growth driving states account for 85% of the caseload, with 40% of confirmed cases concentrated in the top two growth drivers, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu,” the finance ministry said in its Monthly Economic Report for July.
Recently released data on India’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for manufacturing showed a decline for the month of July to 46 when compared to 47.2 in June, signalling that local lockdowns imposed across the country by state governments to curb infections amid the demand slump are impacting business activities at the national level.
India started unlocking its economic activities on 1 June. As per government data, active cases reached 5,60,000 by July-end, growing at 166 percent compared to June. The highest growth in active cases in July was seen in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Jharkhand, which have been worse affected in the second major wave of infections.
