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NCAER releases findings of the Delhi NCR Coronavirus Telephone Survey

The National Council of Applied Economic Research NCAER released the results of its first round of the Delhi National Capital Region Coronavirus Telephone Survey (DCVTS) on Sunday April 12 2020. The study conducted by NCAER’s National Data Innovation Centre uses a scientifically designed rapid telephone survey in both the urban and rural parts of Delhi NCR to assess:

  • people’s knowledge of the Coronavirus
  • people’s attitudes and perceptions towards the risk of a Coronavirus infection
  • preventive and control measures especially social distancing and the feasibility of adhering to them
  • the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on people’s livelihoods income social life and access to essential items.

The DCVTS interviewed a representative random sample of some 1750 adults covering the entire Delhi NCR during April 3-6 2020.

Key Findings of the DCVTS and Implications

The DCVTS results point to the considerable success in communicating the dangers of the Coronavirus and the importance of social distancing among respondents. An estimated 94.9 per cent of respondents reported the virus to be highly dangerous with an additional 3.2 per cent considering it to be moderately dangerous.

On the symptoms of COVID-19 the disease resulting from a Coronavirus infection 84.7 per cent of respondents (including 81.2 per cent in rural areas and 88.9 per cent in urban areas) were aware of fever as a symptom and 84.9 per cent aware of cough as a symptom but only 44.6 per cent of respondents identified breathing difficulties as a symptom. Moreover the total proportion of respondents who were able to identify all three main symptoms of COVID-19—fever cough and breathing difficulties—was only 36.4 per cent. Furthermore 6.2 per cent of respondents reported the “common cold” (“jukaam” in Hindi) as a symptom of COVID-19 meaning that they were connecting the two conditions not surprising given that some of the initial symptoms could be similar.

This suggests that people’s ability to distinguish COVID-19 from the common cold or flu will not be easy implying the critical need for more testing of symptomatic cases and cluster testing. Figure 1 illustrates the findings of the DCVTS on the identification of Coronavirus symptoms.

 Figure 1: Knowledge of the Symptoms of Coronavirus among Respondents in Delhi NCR:
DCVTS April 3-6 2020

Source: Round 1 of the NCAER Delhi NCR Coronavirus Telephone Survey (DCVTS).

           On the impact of the virus on the livelihoods of people the vast majority of the DCVTS respondents reported a reduction in their income or wages in the two weeks before the Survey i.e. since March 20th with the reduction being the lowest for salaried workers and farmers and the most for casual workers. Only 15.5 per cent of households reported that the Coronavirus outbreak has not reduced their income or wages in the two weeks preceding the Survey.   More than half (54.9 per cent) reported that the Coronavirus outbreak had reduced income or wages “very much” and nearly a third (29.6 per cent) reported that income and wages had fallen “somewhat”.  While an estimated 74.5 per cent of casual workers reported that their income and wages had suffered “very much” the corresponding figures were lower for regular salaried workers (46.7 per cent) and farmers (41.6 per cent). It is possible that the effect on farmers could be greater after the harvesting season is over (towards the end of April or May) given that the lockdown and social distancing may make it difficult for farmers to sell and deliver their produce.

On access to essential items in the two weeks prior to the Survey about 29.3 per cent of households were affected by shortages in supplies of food cooking fuel and medicine. There were significant differences between rural (32.6 per cent) and urban (25.3 per cent) households in their experience of supply shortages. The item-wise data shows that 20.7 per cent of respondents experienced shortages of vegetables and fruits (25.2 per cent in rural areas and 15.2 per cent in urban areas) followed by those experiencing shortages of grains and cereals (14 per cent) medicines (8.7 per cent) cooking fuel (7.8 per cent) and milk (6.5 per cent). That about 9 per cent of households experienced difficulty in accessing medicines could lead to serious health implications going forward especially if these shortages get worse over time.

The DCVTS also analysed the perceptions of people about the possibility of their getting infected by the Coronavirus.  The survey found that as of April 3-6 65.3 per cent of respondents did not see any chance of themselves or their household members getting infected. These responses were similar in both rural and urban areas. This finding stands in sharp contrast to the result reported above that nearly 95 per cent of respondents thought the Coronavirus was highly dangerous. There appeared to be a sense of some denial among nearly two-thirds of respondents that though highly dangerous they themselves would not get infected. This denial gap could have serious implications for what happens when the lockdown is lifted if households become complacent believing that they themselves would be immune to the infection.

The study also measured the social distancing practised by respondents during the day before they were surveyed.  To measure this as accurately as possible a ‘contact’ was defined as a two-way conversation in the physical presence of another person or being in the physical presence of another person within six feet or direct physical contact such as sharing a bicycle ride or holding a baby.  This was measured using two types of contacts: contacts inside the house (including household members) and those outside the house. Figure 2 shows that more than half the respondents (53.5 per cent) during the previous day had made no contacts at all outside their home. At the other end a significant proportion of respondents (5.6 per cent) had 10 or more contacts outside the house possibly including people like shopkeepers for essential goods or social workers who could not have practiced social distancing.  The DCVTS also gives an idea of visitors to the home during the previous day with whom the respondent was in contact as shown in the graph assuming reasonably that the respondent had contact with all the members of his or her household.

Social distancing can have other physical or mental health effects. About 36 per cent of respondents mentioned that in the past two weeks they and their household members had curtailed going to a health facility for a medical condition other than a Coronavirus infection.

Figure 2: Social Distancing as Practised by Respondents in Delhi NCR in the 24 hours before being surveyed:
DCVTS April 3-6 2020

 

Source: Round 1 of the NCAER Delhi NCR Coronavirus Telephone Survey (DCVTS).

            The study further found that in spite of facing difficulties and challenges the majority of respondents supported the idea of extending the lockout period if needed. As many as 86.7 per cent of respondents expressed support for an extension of the lockdown for two more weeks after April 14 2020 with 62.5 per cent strongly supporting the extension and 24.2 per cent supporting it.
These first findings of the DCVTS study (and two other DCVTS rounds that will take place at the end of April and in May) should help understand the overall impact of the Coronavirus pandemic and will be useful for weighing options and deciding the future course of action. It will also aid the design of policy packages that can help restrict the spread of the disease and at the same time seek to protect the incomes and well-being of people particularly those who are the most vulnerable.

A more detailed set of slides and the Round 1 DCVTS survey questionnaire can be downloaded from this link on the NCAER website.

About the DCVTS:

 

The Delhi NCR Coronavirus Telephone Survey was completed in four days by 41 trained NCAER telephone interviewers during April 3-6 2020. The average length of each telephone interview was 11 minutes. The first round of DCVTS achieved an overall response rate of 77.3 per cent with no difference in the urban and rural response rates in the Delhi NCR.

 

The DCVTS interviewed a random sample of some 1750 adults representative of the Delhi NCR and comprising 31 districts spread across the four States of Delhi Haryana Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The sample households were selected from 270 clusters (including 132 Census villages and 138 NSS urban blocks) which are a part of the ongoing Delhi Metropolitan Area Study (DMAS) a flagship panel study at NCAER for conducting methodological experiments in data collection within its National Data Innovation Centre.

 

The DCVTS will be repeated possibly every 3 weeks for at least two more rounds the second in late April and the third in May. The DMAS study provides detailed background data on the DCVTS Round 1 households making possible further in-depth study of these households as they cope with the Coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath.

 

Economic cost of the lockdown

The Indian economy will face an income loss of Rs 1.7 lakh crore per week or a total of Rs 5.1 lakh crore during the three-week-long shutdown called by the Govt

The pandemic COVID-19 has already affected over 1016395 people across the world and there have been 53238 deaths worldwide. Out of this over 20000 people died in the last three months alone. Health experts across the world are yet to discover a vaccine for this deadly virus that can be applied for human use worldwide. This is despite the fact that about 35 companies and academic institutions are racing to create an anti-Coronavirus vaccine. There are at least four candidates which are being tested on animals now. The first firm to conduct a human trial Boston-based biotechnology firm Moderna will enter Phase-II of trials which means widespread human application by early summer. But this is not fast enough. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is expecting an exponential spike in the number of Coronavirus cases across the world in the coming days and is providing necessary information  to vulnerable countries. As a result national and local governments across the world are encouraging social distancing among the people and more and more nations are going into a lockdown mode.

India is already in the second week of its 21-day lockdown that was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24 in a televised address to the nation. Despite its size and the density of the population the entire country that includes 28 States and eight Union Territories has gone into a lockdown making it the largest such exercise in the world.

The country which has a poor healthcare infrastructure has no option but to do this as social distancing is probably the surest way of stopping the spread of the Coronavirus among the 1.3 billion Indians. However health experts say that nothing can prevent the country from going into stage-III of the outbreak and the lockdown is just delaying our entry into it. It is giving us more time to prepare for stage-III and increasing the chances of us taking advantage of any medical breakthrough that takes place.

But the big question is for how long can India afford to shut itself down? As it is the Indian economy was in a shambles before the outbreak. Now it also has to bear the huge economic loss of the three-week-long complete shutdown and the burden of the financial relief package of Rs 1.75 lakh crore that was announced by the Government for the country. 

Once this nightmare is behind us it will become really hard for the Finance Ministry to prepare an effective package for a quick revival of the economy. Here are some estimates of the direct economic loss to the nation and some possible interventions for quick recovery.

The third advance estimate of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) published by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) revealed that India’s estimated GDP for 2019-2020 stood at Rs 47 lakh crore which turns out to be Rs 3.6 lakh crore per week of which 17 per cent is earned by casual labour 21 per cent by regular wage employees and 62 per cent by self-employed workers. The lockdown will affect all these workers on a different magnitude. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data for 2017 a whopping 25 per cent of total workers in India are casual labourers (i.e. almost 93 million people) earning about Rs 1754 per week. Another 23 per cent of the total are regular wage earners who get an average Rs 4063 per week. The rest 52 per cent workers are self-employed ones that include own account workers the self-employed and helpers in household enterprises. According to the PLFS’ estimates a self-employed person earns about Rs 3460 per week. The complete shutdown will affect casual labourers the most as their income depends on working days available in a week.

The situation is of course marginally better for regular wage employees. But nearly 46 per cent of the total regular wage earners in India do not have the benefit of paid leave. Therefore if their salary is not protected during the lockdown period they will lose their income. On the other hand self-employed people will lose profit earning from their enterprises/firms due to close of operations. 

The lockdown will affect various sectors differently. As Modi’s speech indicated only production and distribution of essential commodities and services have been allowed to be operational. That includes food supply goods transport manufacturing of medical equipment pharmaceutical medical facilities communication and financial services. Therefore workers will definitely suffer income loss if they are engaged in the locked down sectors. 

Another 40 per cent casual labourers are engaged in the construction sector which will surely be closed for 21 days leading to income loss to the respective workers. A further 10 per cent of casual workers are engaged in manufacturing industries where almost 90 per cent of economic activities are closed for now. The assumption of 90 per cent shut down of manufacturing is based on the output share of food and medical equipment sectors in total production. 

The estimate is based on the 2016 Supply Use Table (SUT) of the CSO which indicates that foodgrain processing and medical equipment contribute to about 10 per cent of the total GDP of the manufacturing sector. Thus about 45 million casual workers (i.e. 50 per cent of total casual workers) will be vulnerable provided agriculture and allied sectors continue to provide job opportunities to the rest of the workers. This is a reasonable assumption for the agriculture sector as harvesting of Rabi crops usually starts in most of the States in late March/early April coinciding with the complete lockdown period in the country. Hence the aggregate income loss of the casual workers will be Rs 0.3 lakh crore per week during the lockdown period if we consider their per week income earning to be of the same level as in the third quarter (October-December 2019) of 2019-20.

Additionally as 46 per cent of regular employees do not have the benefit of paid leave it is estimated that almost 15 per cent of total regular wage employees will lose their income due to the shutting down of economic activities. Thus it is estimated that the regular salaried group will lose Rs 0.35 lakh crore per week as compared to their weekly income obtained during the third quarter of the Financial Year 2019-20. 

Since 53 per cent of self-employed people are engaged in agriculture we assume there will be no direct impact on their income during this time. However the income of the rest of the 47 per cent of self-employed people will be affected if they are engaged in locked down sectors. Based on calculations of the sector-specific impact almost Rs 1.05 lakh crore income of the self-employed people will be lost per week. 

In effect the Indian economy will face an income loss of Rs 1.7 lakh crore per week or a total of Rs 5.1 lakh crore during the three-week-long lockdown.

Considering that almost 95 million workers/entrepreneurs will be hit and if we consider that each of them supports on an average four people nearly 380 million people will face severe welfare threats. This estimate is only for the direct impact on income for a period of 21 days. The economic loss will be much higher if timely recovery does not take place and if we are forced to go in for an extended lockdown going forward. So what should the Government  do to improve the situation?

As per estimates the shutdown will cause a loss of Rs 5261 per casual worker which is nearly equivalent to the income support given by the Government to the farmers through the PM-KISAN scheme (i.e. Rs 6000 annual income support to farmers). It makes sense to extend this scheme to the casual labourers engaged in the non-agricultural sector.

Regular wage employees without entitlement of paid leave are highly vulnerable during this period. Therefore firms can be encouraged to compensate wage loss to those employees and a tax benefit package for the firms may be thought of.

Self-employed people will also face a severe loss due to the economic downturn. Boosting effective demand in the economy can encourage investment and in this context the first two measures will play a key role. So far an amount of Rs 15000 crore has been allocated for the heath sector for improving healthcare facilities.

The Finance Minister’s recent announcement of a Rs 1.75 lakh crore package to help the economically-weaker sections survive the loss of jobs and income that would be the inevitable fallout of the Coronavirus outbreak is not adequate.

As indicated above this is only one-third of the loss of income estimated during the shutdown. Of course the Government has issued instructions exempting workers and labourers from paying rent for a month and assured wages for them during the lockdown period. This may no doubt lessen the burden. However foolproof implementation would not be an easy proposition despite the Government’s best intention.

(The writers Barund Deb Pal is with IFPRI and Sanjib Pohit Professor works for the National Council of Applied Economic Research. The views expressed are personal)

Sensitivity of Work Participation Rates to Survey Design

This is the first of a series of Measurement Briefs from the NCAER National Data Innovation Centre based on the findings from the Delhi Metropolitan Area Study. This particular Brief on employment outlines the challenges in measuring women’s work and demonstrates how different approaches of employment measurement determine the status of women’s employment. The results in the Brief suggest the need for caution in interpreting the declining trend of women’s work participation and point to the need for a simpler but comprehensive approach that would better capture activities omitted in traditional labour force surveys

No more shifting goalposts

As Coronavirus attacks the manufacturing sector  the Govt’s farm policy will have to be more consistent to help kickstart the economy

In spite of the best efforts of the Government since 2014 manufacturing growth has not picked up in the country. It is not likely to do so in the near future too due to the global economic meltdown brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this scenario agriculture is expected to remain the main source of livelihood for over 50 per cent of the Indian population in the foreseeable future. Therefore a vibrant agricultural sector is vital for India’s employment and growth story. However the Narendra Modi Government has not witnessed any significant recovery in the farm sector despite the fact that the Centre came out with numerous schemes aimed at it since 2014. Given the multiplicity of schemes and fund constraints priorities shift from year to year and new schemes invariably garner more funds while old schemes flounder. Also there is a very obvious lack of research on the ground before suggesting and approving a scheme for implementation. Take for instance the river interlinking scheme which cost $87 billion at the time of the launch.  Once interlinking of 60 of India’s largest rivers is completed it is expected to help end farmers’ dependence on rainfall bring millions of hectares of cultivable land under irrigation and help generate thousands of megawatts of electricity.  Even though water is listed as entry 17 in List II of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution the NDA initiated work for linking the Betwa and Ken rivers which pass through Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh quickly. The work is nearly complete but there is no word on when it would be operational. In fact no substantial fund is being allocated to start work on linking other rivers. Of course linking of the Godavari and Cauvery figures in the report of the Task Force of the Department of Economic Affairs under National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) projects but there is no mention of linking of other rivers like the mighty Brahmaputra in the NIP’s vision document.

Doubling the Farmers’ Income (DFI) is another scheme that was launched by the Centre and in the Union Budget the Finance Minister announced a 16-point action plan for this. It included measures to provide growers access to distant markets through trains (Kisan Rail) and flights (Krishi Udaan). Here too the plan did not take into account the abundance of farmers with small and medium-sized holdings whose only worry is to get a remunerative price for the produce in the nearby market and not be exploited by traders. The DFI committee has made multiple recommendations for achieving its goal by 2022 but most of these instructions are the outcome of a top-down approach at the Union Government level even though much of these policy decisions need to be implemented by State Governments. Moreover only some of these recommendations pertain to particular States and these are to be identified after examination at the ground level which was not undertaken in the committee’s deliberations. Finally even though committee reports provide estimates of the investment required for DFI no attempt has been made to sequence the fund needs. After all given the monetary constraints for investment and time limitation the top priority should have been to identify the most binding constraints for DFI State-wise and allocate funds accordingly. Given the fund limitation even the Union Government has only been able to undertake a few of these recommendations. In fact the largest chunk Rs 75000 crore of the farm budget for 2020-21 went to the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) another newly-launched scheme for providing cash support to farmers.

Last year the Union Government launched Jal Jeevan Mission under which all rural households are expected to have piped water supply by 2024. No doubt it is an excellent scheme given that the rural population suffers significantly from water/vector-borne diseases. However given the water stress in India it is not clear where the supply would come from. As one recalls the NITI Aayog’s recently-released report argues that India is not only facing the worst water crisis in history this will aggravate over time. By 2030 the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual over six per cent loss in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Moreover the States which would be hit the hardest by the water crisis contribute to nearly 20-30 per cent of our agricultural output. Ideally in view of the impending water crisis the Government should have provided more incentives to those who cultivate less water-incentive crops in water-deficient States. However no such steps have been taken though the DFI committee has advocated them. Since growers overuse water due to the absence of water meters and free power to the farm sector there are only two ways to tackle this water crisis. In the short-run provide more incentives for cultivating less water-incentive crops and in the long-run large investment should be undertaken to expand “per drop more crop” schemes with increased use of technology. The Government must realise that it is best to stick to a few schemes over a period to reap their benefits. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic it is likely that the economy will pass through a recession. Since agriculture is a vital source of livelihood it is the responsibility of the Government to increase farm incomes as this would raise demand and help kickstart the economy.

The writer Sanjib Pohit is Professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research. The views expressed are personal.

Welfare schemes need tweaks to accommodate Covid-19 impact

The schemes in place for essentials like food healthcare and income support should be appropriately modified to minimise economic burden on the affected communities.

Our economic and social lives as we know it have been thrown in disarray. While some of the productive activity in the services sectors has moved to ‘work from home’ it is difficult to move the manufacturing sector home. At this point both households and firms need economic support. A complex country like India needs economic policies to guide it through difficult times both during and after the crisis. Here are some possible social welfare policies for households that can be implemented during the crisis.

As firm after firm industry after industry shuts down with possible increase in unemployment without pay it is absolutely imperative that the Central and State governments focus on social welfare in these tough times. This would be even more imperative if the country moves from Stage 2 to Stage 3 of the novel coronavirus (Covid-2019) outbreak viz the spread of community transmission. In any case approximately 92 per cent of our labour force is in the informal sector.

The developed countries are looking at cash transfers for households and postponing payments. Closer home Kerala has come up with a comprehensive social welfare package for the State involving the public distribution system income transfers cooked food and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). In India transferring of social welfare benefits has involved the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mechanism which has matured over the years.

When it comes to formulating schemes we must return to the three basic questions in economics – what how and to whom? Given the urgency of providing support quickly in the next week or so we have to focus on schemes which can achieve scale efficiency and timely delivery with already existing matured processes.

The two key things that any human being would need to survive in these tough times are food and medicine. We have two working schemes in place that fit the criteria PDS and Ayushman Bharat. Other schemes are the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) and the MGNREGS. An income support scheme for unemployed urban workers would also be needed. The tweaks needed in the schemes are given below and proposed only for the first quarter of 2020-21.

Food: The PDS would need two major tweaks to serve the current objectives. First it needs to be made universal or semi-universal. This obviates the need for any kind of authentication biometric or otherwise. Second one could potentially offer additional food products via the PDS for a more holistic nutrition. These changes need to be implemented by the Central government. Right now State governments can only increase support for existing PDS beneficiaries.

Health: All citizens which do not have health insurance should be encouraged to sign up for the Ayushman Bharat scheme for the first quarter with any co-pay costs borne by the government. The scheme should cover Covid-19 with tests medicines hospital admission etc. This should be implemented by the Central government.

Senior citizens at least should be provided free medical tests and medicines for non-Covid-19 diseases similar to the Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics in Delhi. The State governments can play a larger role here.

Telephonic or digital support to all citizens is critical. The local communities at the municipal and gram panchayat level can ensure that helplines are working with support staff round the clock.

Income support: The NSAP for senior citizens and disabled citizens may be enhanced. The in-cash DBT mechanism at work may be used for this. Although this is a Central government scheme and must be tweaked by it many States also provide additional support. They too can increase their share.

The biggest challenge in providing income support for urban unemployed workers is that there is no working database for reference. To quickly deliver benefits employers’ help could be sought. The employers with their unique identifiers could help fill up the forms online for laid-off employees with the necessary details for in-cash DBT monthly transfers for three months. This could be implemented by the State governments.

Farmers and rural workers: Rural labour whether in the agricultural or non-agricultural sector would need support. However increased work at rural areas via the MGNREGA may result in less social distancing helping the spread of Covid-19. Hence the MGNREGA may continue without tweaks. In-cash DBT mechanism may be used here too.

For farmers fertilisers subsidy may continue albeitwithout biometric authentication. This tweak has to be implemented by the Central government.

The point is that alternative mechanisms for transfer of social welfare benefits at scale are available in India. They are being leveraged by Central and State governments in myriad ways. With some tinkering each of them (individually or together) could potentially be used to provide holistic support to all citizens.

The writer Bornali Bhandari is a Senior Fellow at the National Council of Applied of Economic Research. Views are personal.

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