Even before the current pandemic, Indian businesses weren’t doing that well. While the AGR woes faced by major telecom providers (except Jio) might seem like a scar from a mishap long past, it was a very recent occurrence within the Indian economic biosphere. It threatened the downfall of Vodafone-Idea, and along with it, a loss of nearly 25 lakh jobs employed therewith. With an unbeatable foe in Reliance run Jio, Bharti Airtel would’ve most likely faced a similar fate way down the line.
All of that, however, is hogwash now. The time to crib over AGR woes, GDP stagnation, unemployment, and the many issues plaguing the Indian economy skin deep must be side-lined for the enemy presently barging in our doorstep – the coronavirus pandemic.
A very telling outcome of the current COVID-19 pandemic is the loss of entrepreneurship in the years to come. Private businesses will see a crunch in numbers. small to medium-sized enterprises will keep losing light, the longer this shutdown goes on. Till then, to put it lightly – only the strongest will survive.
Who is stronger, than the monopolists of the Indian markets?
Their grip seemed weakened, with the rise of e-commerce in the latter part of the 2010s (nevertheless, they were still a force to be reckoned with). The coronavirus pandemic came as a shot to the knees for these smaller enterprises. Now, the big fish can roam freely, without the fear of smaller fry nibbling on their scaly structures.
The fear is that India, for the development she has had in the last 25 years or so, will be shoved backwards in time by the same parameter – PM Narendra Modi, in his public address before the lock-down, also said as much. What he was trying to communicate, maybe boils down to an era in the Indian economy, when only a select few industrialists ran the market – the age of Monopoly will come once again, post COVID-19.
(I, Sanjeev Nanda, do not claim to be of any political affiliation whatsoever, and factually state my opinions wherever)