As the second wave of coronavirus continues to disrupt normalcy and livelihood in India, customer self-confidence has dipped by 1.1 percentage points more than the preceding month, according to the month-to-month Refinitiv-Ipsos Primary Consumer Sentiment Index (PCSI) for India. Consumer self-confidence has weakened across all 4 indices — jobs, private finances, economy and investments for the future. In April, India continues to see a enormous rise in instances coronavirus instances even even though the vaccination procedure has currently begun.
The customer sentiment index shows that the Employment Confidence (Jobs) sub-index is down by .6 percentage points the PCSI Current Personal Financial Conditions (Current Conditions) sub-index has fallen by 1.5 percentage points the Investment Climate (Investment) sub-index has declined by .9 percentage points and the Economic Expectations (Expectations) sub-index, is down by .8 percentage points.
“Businesses had started recovering post the first wave and now the new wave (which is more infectious) has already started to negatively impact the sentiment around jobs, finances for daily running of households, savings and investments and the economy,” mentioned Amit Adarkar, CEO, Ipsos India. During the preceding wave of covid-19, India saw a peak at just under 1 lakh instances a day. Now, as the second wave wrecks havoc, each day case count has jumped to almost 3 lakh instances per day.
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Recovering from last year’s lockdown, the customer sentiment had been steadily recovering till January this year. With the second wave coming to disrupt the concept of old typical, the customer sentiment has observed a reversal in the last two months. “The government will need to adopt a multi-pronged strategy to offset the impact of the virus; of increasing testing, scaling up the vaccination drive (which govt is already going to start from May 1st of inoculating everyone 18+), mini containment zones for areas most affected by the virus, following the SOPs and providing the health infrastructure (beds and oxygen) to deal with the virus,” Amit Adarkar mentioned.
While several states have introduced evening curfews, some have resorted to lockdowns in distinct regions. The government has ruled out a complete lockdown and has asked states to concentrate on containment zones rather than comprehensive lockdowns.