The IMF projections that came out on Tuesday are a grim reminder that coming months are going to be unprecedentedly tough both for the Indian and world economy. A few phrases from this ‘2020 World Economic Outlook’ will tell how much precarious the situation is currently and how much worse it’s going to be - “steepest downturn since the Great Depression of 1930s”, “a crisis like no other” are a few among a slew of alarming tones. It will be a dramatic slowdown for the global economy and percentage-wise effect will be 3 % during the current year and for India, it will be a deep plunge to 1.9 %. Amid this all-depressing data, the only glimmer of hope is the prediction which has also come as a part of the report that India has every possibility to make a sharp rebound in 2021 by 7.4 per cent. Going by convention, it is apparent that now the report will be deeply analysed with agreements and disagreements. But, it is unlikely that there should be any total disregard of the report, which at normal times would have been somehow easier by the national think tank. If Covid-19 has thrown a great challenge to the medical world, for the economic policy makers and governments all over the world, it the ditto too.

It can be recalled that in January when the whereabouts coronavirus was not fully known to the world, IMF had predicted that for April 2020-March 2021 fiscal, India will manage a modest 5.8 % growth, But, it has ‘rectified’ itself and now revises it to 1.9 %, a deep slip,  which otherwise is enough to underscore the fact that the pandemic  will be a great economic disrupter and there is a near-absolute uncertainty about its impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. No country will escape from the wrath and any pre-accepted tag of ‘economic superpower’ will matter little here, the report shows. The growth charts are all negative and the hardest hit will be surprisingly the countries the world has known as superpowers for so long- US: -5.9, UK :- 6.5, Japan: -5.2, Germany: -7 … After these shocking deluge of tormenting figures, focus and will now fall on the aspect of the much-required turnaround by India. Here, it will be a mix of hope and apprehension. Hope, since there is a precedence that the country had successfully managed a rebound and was able to keep its economy shielded from the great global financial turmoil in 2008-09. Now, the apprehension is that it was possible then since there were no dearth of fundamental fightback capabilities in the economy and it was also not this ‘pressure cooker’  like situation, which has its origin in ‘certain decisions’ taken during last few years.

Will India succeed in making the turnaround? It will depend on the honesty and competence of the decision takers.