Tag Archives: Covid-19

Learnings from the digital Co-WIN app

09 May 2021

Last weekend, I was part of a rather novel experience.

A group of us designed a portal that pulled data from the Co-WIN APIs to showcase where the vaccine slots were available.

This was novel and interesting for two reasons: I am not a techie and can barely say the full form of API without googling – the team that came together to make this portal was quite unexpected. Last September, I had written an OpEd taking about the three As of vaccines: availability, access and affordability. This exercise gave me an idea of how well the system worked on these dimensions.

The story behind the portal

In the previous post I had mentioned that this portal was created by Ankur Gupta, Sandhya Kannan and me.

I am on a WhatsApp group of school friends from Class X. I am largely an observer there with little interactions. This group of friends from my school in a suburb of Kolkata are an interesting microcosm of those born in early 80’s and educated in West Bengal. Many of them are in and around Kolkata but the group is geographically wide enough to have batchmates from across the country and globe.

I saw Ankur, a batchmate, put up a link to say that Co-WIN APIs are public. I was intrigued by it and reached out to ask if this facility could be put to good use. Ankur is someone I would have last spoken with in 1997 when we appeared for our Class X. So, practically, we re-engaged after a quarter century! Even then, till the whole output came up, our coordination was on WhatsApp – we spoke only after the site was up.

Sandhya had been helping me over the last year. I got to know her through a common friend a year or so ago and she worked with me on my latest book, Through the Looking Glass. She was the marketing guru who advised me on my book’s cover design, marketing plans, social media, and helped put together this website. It was good that we were working on the book and had the website ready – it allowed us a quick place to host our analysis and tool.

Ankur was clear that he is a techie and would need UI/UX support. Sandhya could do basic tech and has reasonable sense of UI/UX but was not very deep from a tech perspective. She roped in a friend Alok who came on to advise on the tech and UI/UX interfaces.

All of us got into this for the excitement of seeing how this would work. We hosted the work that Ankur did on my website. I used my social media to talk about this innovative idea. Our Twitter and LinkedIn posts were seen many tens of thousands of times. The portal saw a sudden increase in traffic with more than eighteen thousand unique users coming in – this in spite of only a single burst of marketing last Monday morning.

We all started doing this pro bono in our spare time. For one, I was naïve enough to think that if you have APIs, getting outputs is a simple affair! No, it is not! This is a big learning in IT project management. We also realized that if we wanted to make an alert system (where people could choose to leave with us which pin code or district they were interested in), we needed to spend some monies on appropriate software. Also, if we really wanted to ramp this up, we would need server capacity to be hired and the technology through in more details. There were some discussions on how to think about privacy and data storage if people were to leave their emails with us.

Over time, many health-related companies and other portals came into this field. For us, this has been an interesting exercise to see how Digital India works: both because of how we all came together to make this and the government’s use of tech in such an open manner made for many interesting experiments and outputs by common public.

I was quite surprised to receive emails from interesting, qualified people in the tech world offering us support. Others wrote in to say that they want vaccinations at particular time slots. Many were disappointed that their city or state did not feature in our list. (The reason it did not feature is simply because there may have been no availability when they checked – we were refreshing every five minutes). The overall demand and interest in this idea was very high.

The Co-WIN team also made some changes. They reduced the refresh frequency and number of points that could be fetched. In any case, this did not matter much – many cities saw the filling up of slots as soon as they opened. People found new “hacks” into the system: some figured out timings on when slots are released; others found out that rural areas had availability and they could book and go there for shots; others reported that in some places if you go line up early in the morning, they give you a token for vaccinations.

While this API pull-based device was useful to have, the Indian customer had found Indian solutions.

The three As

This takes us to the three As that we spoke of last year: availability, access and affordability.

Availability: In a previous note, I modelled the vaccine market in India. We noted that if newer sets of vaccines can come in and India can improve its ability to give one crore doses a day, then by the end of this calendar year, we stand a chance of vaccinating the entire adult population in India. Availability is difficult to forecast with many variables on which vaccines are coming in, when, at what price points, and in which segment (public or private), etc. However, what is clear is that India still needs around two billion doses to be administered. Availability will hence be a critical metric to track and apps like ours are a way to get a sense of direction on the same.

Access: I made this point last September: “The government should invest its energies in getting the doses, not in administering the system that administers the doses. If an elaborate system of maintaining records is kept, it can lead to undue bureaucratic delays and hold-ups. Anyone who wants to take a vaccination shot should be allowed to without the need to show any documents. The crisis is not the time to create a health registry or a digital health id.”

The Co-WIN app, while very intuitive and easy to use, still requires people to be reasonably digitally proficient. Some news items emerging over the last few days suggest that states want to make their own changes, Co-WIN itself may change its processes to include a four-digit OTP, etc. The Co-WIN app has worked reasonably well for the initial rounds of vaccinations: it is important that access to vaccinations becomes more and more easy via tech, rather than complicated.

Affordability: A large part of the vaccine “market” in India will largely be purchases by Central and State governments which will be administered to the citizens free of cost. Many states have already announced free vaccinations for all its citizens and others may also follow suit. People who can afford it may choose to pay for the vaccine and get it from the private market. Given the wide array of choices now available, it is possible that the system will settle down into an equilibrium once the availability appears to be sorted.

Conclusion

The virus has caused many a surprise in its mutation and outbreak, especially over the last month. The response and fight-back will shape the future for many of those who are directly impacted and for the rest who have remained safe in this round. Vaccination is the safest way to a post-Covid world. As we move towards universal vaccination, it will be useful to use tech as a means of making vaccines available, accessible, and affordable for all our fellow citizens.

This turned out to be a very valuable exercise in understanding tech, policy and analysis, but most important, working with a friend after more than two decades – and all this digitally from home.

Modelling the vaccine market in India

03 May 2021

A new chapter has opened up in India’s fight against Covid-19 with three big changes in April. Starting May, vaccines are now available for all adults in India. The central government is no longer the only purchaser – the vaccine manufacturers are now free to sell to the state governments and also to private sector (hospitals, companies, etc.). Also, many new vaccines are entering the fray in India apart from the India-made Covishield and Covaxin.

With these three big changes, many new aspects have opened up. There is now much larger demand for vaccines; there are newer vaccine entrants to address this large demand; and there are now different prices for different vaccines and segments. Let us understand these aspects in some detail.

A billion people – and approx. two billion doses

Vaccines were open only for those 45 years and above. This is a population of around 35.6 crore citizens. Out of these, 12.4 crore people received one shot and 2.6 crore received both their shots as of end-April. Since each person will require two shots, this segment of population will require a total of 71.2 crore doses. Since a total of 17.6 crore (12.4 crore single and 5.2 crore doses for double) have been administered, this leaves a demand for 53.6 crore doses.

There are 62.2 crore Indians in the age range of 18-44. This means that they will need 124.4 crore doses. Since very few of these have received these doses (frontline workers, etc. who are counted in the count above), it is practical to assume that all these doses will now be required.

A line of disclaimer in these population numbers. Most of these numbers are estimates made by various experts drawing from the Census of 2011. While most of these numbers are broadly accurate (in an order-of-magnitude sense), they are not intended to be exact.

Putting together these two data sets, this implies that for around 98 crore people, India will need a total of 178 crore shots. See table 1.

Who will supply these vaccines?

India had two approved vaccines: AstraZeneca’s Covishied which is manufactured by Serum Institute and Covaxin of Bharat Biotech. Serum Institute is expected to produce 7 crore vaccines in May while Bharat Biotech is expected to produce 2 crore doses. Serum Institute’s capacity is expected to go up to 10 crore vaccines by June and Bharat Biotech’s to 6 crore by July.

Sputnik vaccines have already started coming in and possibly, Pfizer may come soon too. Doors maybe opened for other vaccines to come in. We have no good indications of how these vaccines will ramp up in India and hence some assumptions have to be made. Table 2 has the details of the assumptions.

None of the numbers in Table 2 are official and hence need to be taken as guesstimates. These numbers may be subject to significant changes. For the two vaccine manufacturers based in India, these production numbers may not represent production only for India; however, for the purposes of this analysis, we assume that these numbers pertain to India. While these are production or import capacities, we take these to also be the sales numbers and the doses that are injected to the citizens. This is a reasonable assumption as the inventory stock is not expected to be very high.

This also assumes a system that is able to handle all the load rising up to 30 crore doses a month – or a crore doses a day. Creating the distribution capacity is as much of a challenge as the availability of vaccines.

With these assumptions, it is possible to draw out a schedule which suggests that India will be able to vaccinate its adult population by the end of this calendar year. It is going to take time to vaccinate all but a pathway to vaccination for all can be seen. Hopefully herd immunity will be achieved significantly before that. We note that this is a possible outcome based on availability and distribution capabilities – it is not guaranteed.

Many vaccines, many segments, many prices

This brings us to the third important development – the freeing up of prices. This means that various vaccines will be sold at various prices to various segments. Now, we have data based on company pronouncements for the two Indian manufacturers on what they plan for charge each segment. We are still in the early stages of the newer vaccines coming in and there is no clarity on the prices that they will charge.

For sake of simplicity, we assume that their prices will be similar to the price of Covaxin. One could argue that there is a semblance of price stability across the three segments that have been defined (central government, state governments, and private sector). Prices may not remain stable through the course of the year and across segments – they could change materially depending on demand-supply dynamics. For the sake of this calculation, we have taken stable prices across segments and time.

It is possible that some vaccine manufacturers and suppliers will focus on only one of these segments. Some may prefer to deal with a large, committed buyer like a central or some state governments, or some may prefer the higher-paying but more difficult to reach private segment. Again, these strategies can change with time and with market realities. If one supplier struggles with supply or there is suddenly a large import in a month or two, that could change the market dynamics with respect to prices and market shares. Again, for the sake of simplicity, we have assumed that of all the production and supply, central government will buy 45% of all the stock, the state governments cumulatively 35% and the private sector will account for 20% of the volumes.

The important point to note here is again that this is one simplified output – the idea is to get a reasonable mid-point estimate of the situation at hand. The actual outcomes can be materially different.

If we put together all the data points that we now have, it is computationally easy to derive the market potential of the various vaccines. We multiply the expected doses sold in a segment with the price for that segment to estimate the revenue for the supplier. Table 3 has all the details.

These numbers are not cast in stone – they can change dramatically based on market realities of prices and quantity supplied to various segments. It is important to note that these calculations are directional in nature and should not be treated as certain in any manner. We should continuously re-evaluate these numbers in light of the evolving realities. It would hence be too simplistic to look at these numbers as they exist currently to come to any specific conclusion about a vaccine or a manufacturer.

Public policy aspects of the vaccination

The above analysis helps us come to a reasonable estimate of the expenditure that various segments can expect to do over the course of the year. Note that this is only the cost of the vaccine: there will be other significant costs of distribution, delivery and administration. This is hence the lower-bound of the costs that these segments would face.

The overall cost of just the vaccine, if these prices and quantities were to hold, is expected to be slightly less than Rs 80,000 crore. The central government will bear around a sixth of this cost, the state governments cumulatively close to a third, and the private sector could end up footing more than half of this bill. Again, this is just the cost of the vaccine – there will be more costs that each segment will have to bear.

If we compare these numbers from the perspective of the economy, it suggests an overall cost of ~35 bps (or 0.35%) of the GDP (which is estimated to be Rs 222 lakh crore in FY2022). From the perspective of the fiscal deficit of both the states and the centre combined, the impact of only the cost of the vaccine is expected to be less than 20 bps of the GDP. The private sector will also see a similar cost – it is possible that a large proportion of the doses at private prices will be taken by people who can afford the cost.

This exercise has been treated as a one-time exercise in vaccination. In case the flu vaccination becomes an annual ritual, there will be important implications on the health sector spending by both the private and the public sector. It is too soon to say if this will be required: we will learn more as we battle ahead with Covid-19. If this is going to be a periodic requirement, questions of inter-generational equity will again arise: should the old be given their annual dosage before all the young have been inoculated? Note also that this exercise is limited to all adults only – if the vaccination is required for those below 18, it could add another 35 crore people (and 70 crore shots) to the demand. We will need to solve for these issues when we come to them.

Conclusion

Given the limited cost implications and the possibility that India could vaccinate its entire adult population within this calendar year, India should charge ahead full throttle on the vaccination drive. Getting the various things need to fall in place: availability of vaccines, the distribution logistics, the ability to handle around one crore vaccinations a day, finding trained staff, etc., these should be the next set of priorities after the three big steps of April.

The views are personal.

Know when vaccine slots become available

02 May 2021

Click here to check availability for slots for those in the 18-44 age range.

The full link is this: http://vaccineavailability.atilotia.com/

Use filters to check whether COVID-19 vaccination slots are available in your city or pin code. This is applicable for both Covishield and Covaxin shots.

Do note that this is not an official portal. The data is sourced from Co-WIN APIs.

It’s being done on a pilot, non-commercial and best-effort basis by tech, design & policy friends—Ankur Gupta, Sandhya Kannan, and Akhilesh Tilotia. We take no responsibility for completeness or accuracy of data. It depends on the data being passed by the Co-WIN APIs.

We will try to add more features and alerts over time. In case any of you are interested in helping us out, please do contact us here.

Cover photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

‘Moving epicenters’ – preparing India for future waves of Covid

25 April 2021

India faced a severe second wave of Covid-19 – actionable public policy recommendations to prepare ourselves better

An unexpected, unprecedented 16X surge

Around end March 2021, with rapidly reducing active cases, India was getting back to its pre-Covid days in its economic and mobility indicators. Record-high Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection of Rs 1.24 trillion in that month underscored the return of the Indian economy. The turn of the new financial year was supposed to herald an unprecedented double-digit real economic growth.

April turned out to be very different. Cities like Ahmedabad, Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai (to name a few of the severely affected), saw a sudden severe second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. All the explanations that sought to explain India’s sharp fightback of Covid-19 (BCG vaccine, herd immunity, poor hygiene, etc.) were proven useless as various mutations of the virus (UK variant, double mutant, etc.) started to suddenly make a lot of people sick. From around 1.5 lakh active cases, India is suddenly grappling with 25 lakh active cases. It is difficult for systems to prepare for a 16X surge over a 2-3 week period.

Use peace to put on a war footing

This wave impacted some parts of the country and the time of impact, even in such areas, has been different. The epicentre of the pandemic attack kept moving to newer locations – it can be because of many reasons: mutations, spread by travellers, low immunity levels in those areas, etc.

While it is very unfortunate for the cities and regions where there has been a breakout, these ‘moving epicentres’ offer planners an opportunity to beef up the systems and processes in cities and regions that have been spared the wrath of a second wave. There is nothing like over preparation when it comes to meeting. There is every reason for the remaining set of cities and regions, if the pandemic were to indeed make its presence there, to be prepared.

It is always better to plan and execute in ‘peace time’ than to get things done on a ‘war-footing’ when a crisis strikes. The military equivalent of this saying is: the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. What this second wave has created is the awakening that cities and regions which have not seen the surge can use this time to prepare capacity. Logistics is easier, prices and costs are more in control, ability to improvise is higher, and the losses are lower.

A three-step plan

As we reflect on this wave, it is clear that three things have been in short supply: hospital beds with oxygen facilities, oxygen itself, and medicines. This note puts together suggestions on (1) how to tackle the immediate short supply, (2) disease management plans, and (3) some policy frameworks.

Immediate capacity expansion

Medical equipment supplies to be augmented
- Create mechanisms for people to voluntarily share the equipment lying at their homes: oximeters, concentrators, etc. A small financial incentive or a token to those sharing the equipment which gets them some priority in some other area (maybe medicines, oxygen to them or their near-and-dear ones), can be put in place.
- Philanthropies can be channelised to get supplies (concentrators, oxygen cylinders, oxygen manufacturing plants, etc.) from Indian cities that are not impacted or be imported from abroad. NRI network may be put into action.

Remove bottlenecks, if any
- Items like oxygen and medicines can be exempted from customs, tolls, etc.
- Create “green corridors” for inter-city and intra-city travel – similar to what is done during the case of organ donations
- Use new age technologies like drones to transport medicines within cities, regions.
- Use digital and last-mile access of e-commerce and gig-economy companies for getting medicines, medical equipment, and oxygen to patients and hospitals.
Oxygen production
- Set-up oxygen generation facilities near hospitals. On-site oxygen generation works at many industrial plants – set up such centres near hospitals. Hospitals in cities which are not impacted should start making such contingency plans.
- Require retooling of chemical industries to quickly switch over to producing oxygen. However, smaller ones might be worried that all that retooling cost will go to waste as the shortage eases out. Financial incentives or guarantees for retooling can be considered for them.
- Labs of large research institutes can produce oxygen directly or can tweak a few things to do so. Direct government-owned institutes to produce oxygen and urge private ones as well.
Oxygen supply
- Consider if the LPG distribution network and cylinders can be used for oxygen transport and supply. It may be possible to convert LPG cylinders to carry oxygen – if so, this can be activated as Plan B which is put into motion if we hit capacity constraints.
- Transport of oxygen requires specialized trucks. Cities and states can order locally or import to keep some such vehicles as back-up. Build a GPS-enabled tracking of such trucks so that they can be moved around the country as required.
- Designing a flexible train networks which carry oxygen from production zones to emerging need zones will be key. This is different from creating ‘green corridors’ – this is creating the flexibility to change directions as demand-supply balance changes in the country.
- Create oxygen reserves in various regions which can then be transported to the hinterlands or other regions as the case may be. Creating these reserves should follow the easing of the current situation of oxygen deficiency/bottlenecks.
  - Once the reserves start to build, identify ways for dispersed evacuation allowing hospitals, nursing homes, care givers, etc. easy access to such oxygen. Consider setting up ‘oxygen pumps’ – similar to petrol pumps.
Oxygen dispensation
- Allow hotels to do oxygen rooms – similar to Sanjeev Bikhchandani’s idea of revamping Oyo rooms into oxygen dispensing centres
- NGOs, religious institutions may also want to create such capacity – Delhi saw the creation of ‘oxygen langars’ at gurudwaras
- Create capacity for BPAP machines and ventilator manufacture – possibly the sudden surge is already creating a supply response in these segments. Cities and hospitals augmenting their capacity when there is no surge can lead to less panicked responses later.
- Similarly, hospitals should create oxygen tank capacity. This can be made mandatory for larger hospitals. Easy or concessional credit may be made available or accelerated tax deprecation may be allowed as an incentive.
Medicine supply to be augmented
- Deconstruct the value chain for specific medicines as done for oxygen above (production, supply, dispensation).

Disease management plans

Build a single digital, open repository of hospital bed, ICU, ventilator, medicine related status at least at a city level, even if not all India. This should ideally be part of the Arogya Setu and/or Cowin apps fetched real-time from an updated database. Cities which have been spared in this wave should put in place these systems and also take time to publicize and educate its citizens about the same.
There are non-emergency centres (like dental hospitals, eye hospitals, dermatological clinics, etc.) which have operation theatre facilities and also oxygen beds. Such centres should be identified and put on alert within the city.
Work with housing societies and resident welfare associations (RWAs) to create make-shift hospital-like facilities within their compounds so that the moderately sick patients do not clog hospital capacity. This has been done in some cases for quarantine management earlier – it can be upgraded for managing the moderately unwell.
Vaccine related:
- Delaying second dose of vaccine (as much as is medically feasible) can create more capacity to deliver the first dose to those who do not yet have a shot. This will be especially true post May 1 when a large surge is expected.
- Many more centres are needed. Crowding in vaccine centres is a reality – we need to avoid making these such centres as super-spreaders.
- Create a well-publicized guide on whether vaccine will be available to those who have had Covid-19 and if so, after how many months
- Have specific indications for vaccine dosage for those with allergies: the MOHFW portal under “What are the contraindications for this vaccine?” is open-ended with words like “etc.” which can cover a wide range of allergies.
- Allow vaccine certificates generated on Cowin app as vaccine passport for internal travel in trains, planes, etc.
Open non-identifiable data for analysis: co-opt the data community to track down various linkages, for example, between vaccine and infections, any cases of reinfections, location/geographic analysis, etc.
Create increased capacity for sero-surveys and mutation identification.

Policy frameworks

Clear Covid-19 treatment protocol for in-patients and out-patients to be disseminated in the wider population.
- A senior medical figure, say AIIMS or ICMR director, to come frequently on major mainstream and social media and disseminate authentic information on treatment protocols. It is important to balance both positive and concerning news and data.
- In some cases, risk-averse doctors and patients tend to get to hospital much sooner than required. Objective metrics to help determine hospitalization need should be given wide publicity.
- Remove the forced Covid-19 message on mobile calls. It is unhelpful especially in the case of emergencies.
Prepare for different surges: Apart from the sheer surge, one reason why oxygen and oxygen-beds were suddenly found to be in shortage in this wave is that the proportion of patients requiring oxygen treatment is higher than in the first wave. It is possible that different mutations of the virus may create different types of needs: different medicines, more home care instead of hospitalizations, different treatment regimens, etc.
Create a global consensus on free flow of vaccines from countries with surpluses. The global distribution of vaccine will require active engagement with the key countries and via multilateral bodies.

This is a list of action-able and implementable ideas that cities and regions that have not been impacted by the second wave can put in motion. Cities that have been impacted will find that their peri-urban areas or nearby cities are as yet not as badly impacted. City and region leaders should collaborate to build overall capacity. Now is the time to work on “augmenting supply” rather than on waiting to “administer what is available”.

The second wave may have surprised many of us. The next set of waves need not!

This note has been compiled by Akhilesh Tilotia in personal capacity. It draws upon the ideas that batchmates from IIMA 2004 put together on the batch’s active WhatsApp group. This note neither is nor is meant to be medical advice.

Medium-term dynamics for India post Covid-19 lockdown

01 June 2020

Shape of economic recovery will determine employment, debt and exchange rates.

The immediate fiscal deficit dynamics and growth outcomes for India post Covid-19 lockdown have been the subject of intense analysis and discussion. The human crisis of lives and livelihood did demand both an immediate and urgent response. With the lockdown now opening and economic activity picking up, it is important to look beyond FY21 to see how India could fare in the first half of the next decade.

Discussions have focussed on whether the economic recovery will be L, U, V, W, or a swoosh, a la the logo of a famous sports brand. These descriptors refer to the shape of the chart when plotting real GDP (on y-axis) over time (on x-axis). The GDP in FY20 is estimated to be Rs 204 trillion (Rs 204 lakh crore) and if it had continued to grow at 8% in real terms, GDP would have reached Rs 300 trillion by FY25. Depending on the inflation trajectory, the nominal number would have been higher. This then is the baseline chart.

An L-shaped recovery means that there is a sharp displacement from the trend line: this displacement is large and possibly growing compared to the baseline GDP over the next few years. A U-shaped recovery means that there is a gap in the output compared to the baseline over the next few years but the catch-up brings the GDP back to trajectory but this takes, say, the next 4-5 years. A V-shaped recovery means that the sharp fall from the trend-line is reversed in the next year or two. A swoosh can be a U or an L such that the recovery is asymptotic to the trend line: it tries to reach the trendline but never does. W is a scare-scenario: this is the virus coming again and causing the economy to go through varying intensities of L, U, V or swoosh again.

No one knows which of these scenarios will play out. The best that can be done is to describe these scenarios in some detail, assign probabilities based on judgment or expertise, and be ready to reassess the scenarios and probabilities as new information comes in. All economic agents can try to be ready to prepare themselves to react to the emergent scenarios. The government can try to trigger an outcome on the back of their fiscal and reform policies.

Moving beyond GDP

Employment and inequality
Employment, from both a stock and a flow perspective, will be determined by the shape of the recovery. In the near few quarters, depending on the severity of the economic shock, there will be a dent in the stock of people who are currently gainfully employed. Some part of this employment, in sectors and units that are most vulnerable, may simply never come back. The pace of job growth was anyways lower than what was required even before the Covid-19 lock-downs and slowdown: if the job growth remains anemic, this will add to the stock of those who are not able to find jobs.

A V-shaped recovery is hence the best outcome if it can be engineered. An L or a long-U or a swoosh can leave many families out of the employment market. Lack of jobs takes away the ladder that many millions used to climb out of poverty. For those who are not able to build their ‘digital cocoons’, this can keep them deprived of a decent life and future for longer.

Fiscal and debt dynamics
There is a circular loop between the shape of the recovery and fiscal dynamics. A large expansion in fiscal spending can create a sharp recovery: this worked during the Great Financial Crisis in India when India ‘de-coupled’ with the rest of the world, continuing on its growth trajectory for longer. It did eventually lead to challenges in inflation and slow growth, and there are some lessons to be learnt there.

The current discussions concentrate on what the fiscal deficit-to-GDP ratio for FY2021 can be—however, it is important to look beyond to see how both the components of the equation behave. If the GDP growth does not pick up (L, long-U, swoosh), the ratio will continue to remain large. Fiscal deficits cumulate into the debt of the country. If the rate of addition to the debt stock of the country is larger than the rate of growth, debt as a proportion of GDP will continue to increase. This will have consequences on (1) growth rates thereafter (research suggests that countries with high debt-to-GDP ratio find it more difficult to grow), (2) credit rating of the country, and (3) the interest rates in the economy.

Exchange rate and $5 trillion GDP target
The world is awash – once again – with more capital being churned out by central banks. Currencies will take time to find their levels: their nature of trade and capital flows, debt on the country, the strength of its reserves, how the inflation dynamics play out, will all play a role in determining where exchange rates finally start to settle. Low prices of oil can help strengthen the rupee but an outflow of capital, on account of change in confidence or credit ratings, can weaken it.

We started this article by reference to a ‘real’ GDP of Rs 300 trillion by FY25 in the base case scenario, without Covid-19. If the rupee appreciated against the dollar, there was a possibility that India could reach the$5 trillion GDP target. Given the shock to the GDP and the uncertain direction of the exchange rate, it is reasonable to expect that the $5 trillion GDP will take longer. The$5 trillion GDP, at a population of 1.4 billion, would have meant a per-capita income of more than $3,500.

There are real consequences to the lives of millions of Indians based on the shape of the recovery. What jobs they find, what lives they lead and where, what they pay to access loans, how their incomes compare to the rest of the world, depends on how quickly we put Covid-19 behind us. A sharp V-shaped recovery can keep the medium-term economic trajectory of India intact—this will require significant investments from the government.

The author is Head, Strategy and New Initiatives, Axis Bank. Views are personal.

Originally published in The Financial Express.

Coronavirus crisis: Making your ‘Beyond COVID-19 Plan’ work

17 April 2020

COVID-19 could change entire industry ecosystems—what makes planning challenging is that it is not clear how permanent and deep the changes will be.

By now you are deep in your business continuity planning (BCP)—if your organisation had planned it, good; if not, you have learnt its importance the hard way. The COVID-19 related disruption is such a seminal event in our generation that none of us are likely to forget the lessons from this pandemic. From now on, there will be few organisations to not have a BCP: building a BCP will prepare you for any such event which surprises you. What organisations now need is a Beyond COVID-19 Plan (BCP), which pools in the learning from this event to make the business go faster, higher and stronger.

The new BCP requires a look at both your internal resilience and external reality. Be brutal in assessing what has changed and how permanent the change is expected to be. The change will be in employees, their behaviours and expectations, the new realities of working, and in the understanding of which aspects of the business model are most resilient. Play out how the various economic scenarios could unfold taking your cash situation and customers’ realities in account.

Both the internal and external world could evolve dramatically in these uncertain times—the suddenness of the change can unnerve and challenge the best-laid plans. There is no alternative to agility. What makes planning challenging is that, it is not clear now is whether changes will be permanent or temporary.

Expand your horizons…
To build Beyond COVID-19 Plans, look across six horizons to rebuild business models. Draw deep lessons from the experiences lived by your organisation, its stakeholders, the industry, your community, and the national and global changes.

Sharply define what the business stands for. In uncertain times like these, it needs to be very clear in the minds of customers on why the business proposition is relevant in their lives. In the classic speak for strategy, are you offering your customer some differentiated offering or the lowest-cost one? In these circumstances, there is one more element: can your business be present with your customers as their needs and preferences evolve? Why should a customer pay for your offering in times when she is conserving liquidity? An ice-cream company may change to become a milk delivery company in these times of only essential goods—if this is what is needed to remain relevant with your ecosystem now, then so be it.

Be in touch with customers. Remember the lives of your customers have turned quite topsy-turvy, not dissimilar to your own. They do not have all the answers, but it is important to ask them the questions so that solutions can be co-created. Many schools are now experimenting with online classes. They may not work perfectly—they naturally miss out on the interactions that are so critical for learning and leadership-development—but they do keep the basic activity of imparting knowledge on. Depending on how long the lockdowns last, the habits of your customers can change permanently as the tools to address their needs get perfected.

Similar to your customers, keep a close eye on the new expectations of employees. They may be concerned and confused about their futures. Many of their roles will morph into something that would have been unrecognisable just a few weeks ago. They will need trainings to pick up on skills in a changed world. If the norm of social distancing will persist for a few more weeks (months?), and the deliverance of all problems will lie in going digital, your organisation and its employees will have to reskill and redefine their roles. If work from home becomes viable, the concept of offices themselves may change!

The biggest change could be in the nature of your industry. There will be new competitors as the definition and delivery of the offering changes. If most of your transactions are going to be digital, what do you need a physical outlet for? How do you engage your customer who earlier would come to your outlet for some interaction? Will new platforms emerge where your brand or offering is only one of the many that vies for attention? If your distribution channel begins to move away from highways to i-ways, how does that reconfigure your own supply-chain forward and backward?

The society itself will not remain unchanged. In battling COVID-19, many societies have given up on privacy in ways that were unimaginable. Drones are now patrolling dense areas, mobiles are tracking your location and linking them up with whether you were with a diseased person, and your health records could become an important determinant in your visa (or work!) applications. These changes in social norms towards privacy will change the analytics that your business may be able to do your customer. Will these patterns reverse once social distancing norms change? Or will the fear of the next epidemic make such data sharing a new normal?

Finally, national and global factors may fundamentally alter. Longer supply chains may give way to smaller ones, countries may become more concerned about ensuring that they are self-sufficient in certain goods and services, and the flow of goods and services may get impacted by sudden and large tariff changes across borders.

…but remain grounded in reality
None of these horizons are clear and nor do they have easy or obvious answers. The answers will continuously change and evolve as the situation changes. We still do not know how long the lockdown can last, with what intensity, and in which areas will it continue or keep recurring. Without even such basic clarity, it is difficult to forecast how the future will unfold.

The only way to thrive is to hang in there, accept the change and keep adapting. Just like in the old world, your Business Continuity Plan (BCP) document would give you some confidence of facing a crisis, playing with multiple iterations of your Beyond COVID-19 Plan (BCP) will better your chances so that you thrive when we walk into the new world, whenever it opens for business.

The author is Head, Strategy and New Initiatives, Axis Bank Views are personal.