At least 1 crore people in India have lost their jobs due to second wave of COVID-19. 

Moreover, 97 percent of India’s population have become poorer compared to last year. 

These sensational facts have been revealed by CEO of Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). 

“What we’ve seen in April 2021 is that the unemployment rate went up to 8%. In May, we saw the situation worsening. The unemployment rate rose to 14.5%, then became 14.7% in the week ended May 23,” said CMIE CEO – Mahesh Vyas in an interview to IndiaSpends . 

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“CMIE has been pointing out for a long time, that there is a steady fall in salaried jobs. We had 403.5 million jobs before we were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, we’re at 390 million. So, we are much worse off,” added Mahesh Vyas. 

He said CMIE has completed a nation-wide survey of 1.75 lakh households in April which throws up worrying trends on income generation during the last one year — which has witnessed two waves of the pandemic. 

Only 3 per cent of those polled said they have witnessed an increase in incomes, while 55 per cent said their incomes have declined, he said. 

An additional 42 per cent of the people said their incomes remained the same as that in the year-ago period. 

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“If we adjust for inflation, we find that 97 per cent of the households in the country have witnessed a decline in incomes during the pandemic,” he pointed out. 

Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has hit out at the at the Centre for the “mismanagement in tackling the pandemic”. 

He said that 97 per cent Indians have witnessed depreciation in their income due to the arrogance of the Central leadership.