COVID - 19, has wiped the world from its day to day activities. Starting in the wet city of Wuhan in China, previously known as “2019 novel coronavirus” got spread as wildfire all over the world. As human beings continue to spend days locked up inside their homes, it is imperative that it will effect or change fundamentally the way we live and work. At this time of the ongoing global crisis, COVID -19/ Corona virus Pandemic has created an unprecedented socio- economic crisis across the globe. It is predicted that the Indian GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is downward likely by 0.2% points for the fiscal year 2020 to 4.8% and by 0.5% for the fiscal year 2021 to 6%. On the other hand, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) predicted that COVID – 19 will lower the global GDP growth by one-half percentage point for 2020 from 2.9% to 2.4%. Major hit are the countries associated with China which have experienced downward growth revisions like South Korea, Australia and Japan. Also major European economies have experienced a heavy downfall in their manufacturing and importing sectors. However, technology based companies are quite steady in the market as they have been useful in providing medical assistance and other defence related support.

Amidst this lockdown only essential products and services are levied to the public all over the places. In India, the three major channels of impact for the businesses are legal linkages, supply chain and macroeconomic factors. The impact on COVID - 19 in different sector can be categorised as - worst, bad and average in order of their magnitude on mankind. This could be felt across several sectors such as logistics, tourism, export, electronic goods, MSMEs, automotive and retail among others.

WORST HIT (Red Zone)

At the sectoral level, tourism and entertainment industry are the hardest hit by COVID – 19 as authorities encourage the practice of “social distancing” and public are staying indoors. Similarly, the aviation and hotel industry have suffered huge loss due to the cancellation of flights and holiday related travels.

PARTIALLY EFFECTED (yellow Zone)

Industries like real estates, transportation, construction are too suffering considerably as the demand has decreased, the recovery of which will take quite a long time as everything has come to a standstill. However, sector like agriculture are less vulnerable as they are less reliant on social interaction but also will face challenges as demand weavers. Although the Indian territory is agrarian in nature, the supply chain and logistics business has been hit hard due to the absence of technology in the remote places.

ON THE RISE (Green Zone)

On the contrary sectors like pharmaceutical and IT technology including artificial intelligence, data science and analytics are gaining momentum as there is a need at this hour.

Thus as the lockdown extends and the economy staggers it will have a critical impact on the socio- economic factors which in turn will be reflected in the purchasing power of the individual. There will be a decreasing trend in the purchasing behaviour of the consumer due to the uneven layoffs, lack of funds or foreign investments etc. by most of the companies worldwide. However, in remote places where the online technology is not familiar to the dwellers, in those places a drastic change is expected to occur.

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