India has flattened the Covid-19 curve to a great extent with early containment measures, a finance ministry report has said, and ‘green shoots’ have emerged after the restrictions were lifted.

“These green shoots have a conducive policy environment to grow further and nudge the economy early on the path of economic recovery and growth,” the ministry said in its macroeconomic report for June.

It reiterated the International Monetary Fund’s forecast in June of a 4.5% contraction for India in FY21.

“Early green shoots of economic revival have emerged in May and June with real activity indicators like electricity and fuel consumption, inter and intra-state movement of goods, retail financial transactions witnessing pick up,” it said.

It also pointed to rise in e-way bills, increased railway freight, toll collection on highways, improvement in purchasing managers’ indices and the rebound in goods and services tax collections.

The report noted that these numbers were still below their previous year levels.

It said the “the lock-down and social distancing measures have had an adverse effect on the economy as there is an unavoidable trade-off between flattening the infection curve and steepening of the recession curves.”

The loss of economic output from more than two months of lock-down was first triggered from the supply side as labour stayed away from work, the report said, adding the demand side caused further loss of output as consumption of goods and services dependent on customer mobility fell.

COVID SITUATION

The report said that India has managed to flatten the curve of the disease to a great extent on a day the total number of cases crossed 7 lakh.

The active cases crossed 2.5 lakh.

“India has flattened the curve to a great extent with early containment measures supported by enhanced health infrastructure,” the report said attributing it the pre-emptive and pro-active approach of the Centre and States.

“One of the lowest death rates amongst affected countries. Recoveries are increasingly outgrowing active cases,” it added.

India has reduced its doubling rate of infections from the initial 4 days at the time of lock-down to 7 days in early April to 26 days as on June 27, flattening the curve to a great extent, the report said.

It said, without the lockdown, assuming doubling every 7 days, the number of confirmed cases would have been 3000% higher than the actual number as on June 27.