(Image source from: qz.com)

The second wave of coronavirus is quite devastating and it impacted more than the first one that took place last year. The second wave of Covid-19 struck in April and it reached the peaks in May. Crores of Indians are shattered financially because of the pandemic after they lost their jobs. Most of them have one earner in a family and lakhs of people lost their jobs. All those who had minimum savings survived for 2-3 months. There are lakhs of Indians who are sleeping with hunger due to the pandemic. Millions of Indians are not getting access to the subsidized rice and wheat under National Food Security Act (NFSA) which was a law introduced in 2013. Two-thirds of Indians are eligible to receive the quotas through different categories.

Most of the domestic migrants are not accessible for these foods because they live in different states and towns for work. Such people are left in hunger as they are unable to earn for their daily needs. India never witnessed such worse situations over these decades told the analysts. As per the Pew Research that was conducted in March this year, the number of Indians earning 2 USD or less than that per day increased by 75 millions due to the coronavirus pandemic. The ration is misused after the men and women stay in different towns or states to meet their daily needs.

Both work and income have shrunk badly across the country. April 2020 witnessed 122 million Indians losing their jobs and most of them are daily wage workers. Considering all these, the Supreme Court ordered to implement 'one nation one ration card' scheme and the imposed deadline is July 31st. Millions of Indians are even not having ration cards and they will have to starve more because of the pandemic. The number of Indians living below the international poverty line are increased by millions now. At this crucial time, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) recommended a cut in the percentage of people in rural and urban areas.

On the other side, there is no price control on the daily essentials. Right from the cooking gas to the petrol, the vegetables and other daily essentials saw a huge price hike. On the whole, the coronavirus pandemic brought a lot of stress, hunger and pain in crores of Indian families.

By Siva Kumar