Covid-19 and its Impact on the MSME Sector

Stories of households losing family members and livelihood over walking hundreds of kilometres to reach their village during the first wave of covid-19 dominated the news. Even after reaching their villages the dearth of employment opportunities in villages offered migrants very little solace.

Due to loss of income, most families had to find other ways to sustain themselves. Households reported that circumstances force them to take loans from friends, relatives or money lenders. Covid-19 severely impacted the migrants who depended on daily wages to survive and support their families. They had difficulty paying for food and rent. The Government of India did not issue any guidelines to mandate these industries to provide food or shelter to these laborers. Hence causing the death and and unemployment of many of them also making some of them homeless.

The lethal outbreak of covid-19 severely impacted the business of the MSME's sector and sent shock waves in the form of non procurement of raw materials, reduced production and supply of products and the non availability of employees. Hence the consequences like loss of employment, reduction in revenue generation, declined sales and a cut back in the income of the working class.

The MSME's particularly widen their sphere in rural and industrially underdeveloped areas. The MSME's are widely accepted as the backbone of the Indian economy but the hard blow of covid-19 has made this sector to struggle for its sustainability. The threat of lockdown has brought and is still bringing problems in demand, supply, import and export etc.

Source of information: microsave.net and Sage Journals