While fighting COVID-19, India must reduce bankruptcies, bring cash transfers & tax reliefs

While the vaccine and drugs are being developed, the focus is on early detection by tracing and testing, isolation for those suspected or infected, and prevention by social distancing and personal discipline. The administrative response to COVID-19 includes several activities such as: spreading awareness, monitoring and tracking people at risk, conducting tests , to arranging and enforcing quarantines, sanitising spaces and objects, enforcing restrictions on gatherings, giving healthcare to patients, and so on. Taiwan, Singapore), because the Indian state is smaller (percentage of government employees in the population), and the health system is more capacity-constrained (hospital beds per capita). So, the capabilities need to be mobilised proactively to avoid capacity collapse due to high demand later. Frenetic activity of competitive politics, popular media, and various enthusiasts gives democratic life a distracted and edgy quality, making it difficult to recognise a real crisis. The difficulty of sustained social distancing, especially in India, becomes apparent if we consider certain facts together: high urban population density; low levels of income; a slowing down economy; a majority of workers not having paid leaves or social security; delayed onset of symptoms of the virus; healthy, working age people suffering less debilitating effects of this virus; and so on. Firms could not have hedged against this kind of risk, and organisational capacities must be protected during this time by providing some support equitably. Measures, such as soft loans, tax reliefs, forbearance in bankruptcy filings, longer grace periods for utility bills, may be explored to limit the damage. Since democratic power works through popular mandate, people have some shared sense of responsibility in a crisis (think of war time). If things take a turn for the worse, governments may try to restrict information flow in the name of preventing panic or maintaining public support for tough measures.