About the author: Until last year I have been working with Businesses in India for several years. And two weeks ago, I traveled back to Bangalore and India again and Centigo’s subsidiary to understand the Corona situation in the Indian society and how it has impacted Businesses in India.
I will release a blog series the coming days that gives you short updates about the Society, Impact on Swedish Businesses and Impact of Global Delivery Centres.
Updates about the society - Report 1/3
Right now, I am in Bangalore that is locked down like the rest of India since a week back. The COVID-19 situation in India is a few weeks after in transmission compared to Sweden’s situation. And despite that the Corona-tsunami hasn’t really started; the government has taken actions in many areas. India is a country that is much more complex to handle than many other countries. There are 1,3 billion people that are used to be on the streets and where social distancing is not the norm. For hundreds of millions of people there are impossible to stay inside at their home of the simple reasons that they either have toilets nor water in their huts.
To flattering the curve the government decided lock down the country the 24th of March, which basically means that people are not allowed to leave their homes except for buying essentials like food and medicals. This lock-down is schedule for 21 days, even if I personally believe that this is just the starting point.
In India, as for the rest of the impacted countries, there is a polarity: Saving lives here and now on one side of the coin, and a financial catastrophe on the other side.
In India, as in contrast to other countries, there are more short term individual financial terrible consequences. About 95% of all employment “works” within the informal sector and they contribute to about 45% of the output of the system. This means basically that these “employees” are not being on the payroll officially. The result for these people is that when their business’ revenue starts to decrease or stop the informal worker’s compensation decrease or stop on the same day. This differs significantly from a regularly employee that either gets support from company during this time or in worst case gets resigned and thereby gets compensation during the notice period.
Luckily, the government has started to address these by support with cash in compensation, but far from all and far from the earlier lower earning levels are being met.
In next report coming tomorrow I’ll share a few insights about the Impact for Swedish Businesses in India. 
