Tamil Nadu confined by its own restrictions – Times of India

By Suresh Sambandam
A state-wide lockdown was announced by Tamil Nadu government back in March and severe restrictions have been in place since. Movement within and across state borders was restricted and economic activity had come to a near standstill. The repercussions have been plenty.
First, take the state’s tax and revenue deficit. Tamil Nadu lost more than 75% of State Own Tax Revenue (SOTR) in April and May due to the lockdown imposed since March. The tax collected in April 2020 was Rs2,033 crore compared to Rs7,035 crore collected in April 2019. This means that the current fiscal deficit of the state which is estimated to be 2.84% is likely to double. It puts the state government in a difficult position, and creates situations where the exchequer is unable to pay pensions and salaries to employees.
Second, the GST compensation that the Union government was to release to the states has been delayed due to inadequate funds as a result of the economic slowdown. This has in turn put the Tamil Nadu government in dire straits and the financial crisis is only getting worse.
Third, what we must also realise is that people who still have a job and have enough financial cushioning to fall back on are the ones more concerned about health, security and safety. But a majority of those in the lower income groups are going through a different class of problems linked to basic survival. The loss of livelihood is widespread now. Tamil Nadu has the largest cluster of MSMEs, with about 50 lakh MSMEs unorganised, 17 lakh in the organised sector and 7.7 lakh MSMEs registered with the state. The state has disbursed emergency funding to about 1.60 lakh small businesses, but that’s a mere fraction and many have been forced to close down and have gone bankrupt.
The fourth and probably most important impact is on the democratic rights of the people. Section 144 was imposed in March and continues to be in place in the state. Since then, a number of major policy changes have been announced both by the Centre as well as the state — the eight-lane green corridor project, the Centre’s Draft Environmental Impact Assessment notification and more recently the revamped education policy. People do not have the choice of protesting or taking to the streets to show their disagreement, because of Section 144.
I agree that the Tamil Nadu government did take a proactive approach at the start of the pandemic. As a state, we have fared better than others with respect to minimising fatalities and the recovery rate has been high. But with further lockdowns being announced, inter-district travel and communication is severely hampered, economic activity is yet to pick up and basic democratic rights of people are being taken away. For how much longer and with what at stake?
(The writer is CEO of Kissflow, a home-grown global SaaS company)