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"GDP Growth Might Hit The Lowest Since 1947": Infosys Founder N R Narayan Murthy
Writer: Navya Singh
Navya writes and speaks about matters that often do not come out or doesn’t see daylight. Defense and economy of the country is of special interest to her and a lot of her content revolves around that.
India, 12 Aug 2020 11:39 AM GMT | Updated 12 Aug 2020 12:10 PM GMT
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Murthy noted that right from the first day of the nationwide lockdown, his view had been that people need to be prepared to live with the virus for three reasons - there is no vaccine, no cure for coronavirus and the economy cannot be brought to a halt.
The country's GDP growth may touch its lowest since independence in the backdrop of coronavirus pandemic, Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy said on August 10 urging that the economy be brought back on track.
He also suggested developing a system that allows every player in every sector of the country's economy to operate at full steam with suitable precautions.
"India's GDP is expected to shrink by at least five per cent. There is a fear that we may even reach the lowest GDP (growth) since independence, since 1947," Murthy said, in a discussion on 'Leading India's Digital Revolution' during the 16th edition of Institute of Engineering and Technology's India Digital Conversations held virtually.
"The global GDP has gone down. Global trade has shrunk, global travel has almost disappeared. The global GDP is likely to shrink between 5 per cent and 10 per cent," he stated.
Murthy noted that right from the first day of the nationwide lockdown, his view had been that people need to be prepared to live with the virus for three reasons - there is no vaccine, no cure for coronavirus and the economy cannot be brought to a halt.
"Even if we are able to vaccinate 10 million people a day, it is going to take 140 days to vaccinate all the Indians. That is a long period to prevent the spread of the disease," the tech leader said.
"Overall, 140 million workers have been affected by this virus. So the smartness is in defining a new normal. This normal should allow our economy to grow while moving on the earth and fighting the virus," Murthy said.
In the virtual address, Murthy also said that India has traditionally not invested sufficiently in public health. "We have severe shortage both in talent and in material for a robust public health system. The state of our Institute of Public Health is a good data point," he stated.
To bring the economy back on track, the Infosys founder suggested getting back the 140 million migrant workers who went back to their villages to their workplaces.
His second advice was increasing the number of hospital beds and adding equipment for testing and taking care of the projected number of Covid-19 patients for three months and six months from now.
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