Rejuvenation note playing out

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An inherent intangible aspect about the festive season is positivity and it can be safely assumed that it is playing quite the part in the current economic recovery being witnessed post-pandemic. A report by Bloomberg noted that indicators point to an improvement in various segments and the ‘animal spirits’ seem to be slowly getting ready to power the country back to robust growth rates. Another survey by the National Council of Applied Economic Research too pointed out that business sentiment stood at two-year high in the September quarter of the current financial year. The sentiment index in real estate, too, touched an all-time high during July-September and the outlook for the next six months also remains positive, according to a joint report by Knight Frank, Ficci and Naredco.

All these reports point to an improvement in various segments and the ‘animal spirits’ seem to be slowly getting ready to power the country back to robust growth rates. A good point about this phase of recovery is that it has been broad-based across firms, ownership and industrial sectors. The coronavirus-induced lockdowns had a debilitating impact on the economy and after that nightmarish experience, it is important for policymakers to maintain this tempo to help the country get out of this quagmire.

Challenges remain and they will require some out-of-the-box ideas to propel growth rates and resuscitate those segments which are still struggling to recover from the Covid onslaught. The process is underway and hopefully, there will be no further curveballs on this road. The country will wait for the revival in animal spirits to make further capital investment that would create more jobs. Unemployment is the single biggest challenge in the current scenario and if India Inc pumps in more money in capital expenditure, it might directly address this problem of creating jobs.