#InTimesofCorona – Getting back to a ‘new’ normal
All that we can hope at this moment is to emerge from the current impasse into something closely resembling some normality. We have to make peace with it and set our priorities right to make smart, definitive moves.
The COVID-19 pandemic is changing our experiences of space and time forever. With lockdown and restrictions in place, our sense of mobility and freedom to move around is curtailed, and perhaps less obviously, our sense of time as well – something that we have always taken for granted. A crisis of this kind deprives us of what anthropologists call as our ‘temporal agency’ – our ability to imagine, manage, and manipulate who we are, what we need to do. This can bring significant shifts in our lifestyle, buying, travel, and business decisions, extensively impacting the aspirations of logistics and transport sectors in the country. In other words, people are adapting to a simple and frugal living – an obviation to the demand factor.
Speaking of our ‘sense of time’, the lifespan of a news item is reduced to just a few hours or even less, with new ‘breaking’ news coming pouring in these days. Not to mention the ‘business-as-usual’ spirit of fake news and populist propaganda shared via the ‘WhatsApp University’ even at these times, perhaps more than ever lately. We hardly have any sense of time even to consider whether they all make sense to our minds or not. Time is losing its sheen. At the end of the day, there is a sheer mental drain.
In business and policy circles, things are no different. Road transportation, for example, is one global industry that is usually considered as a stable business, wherein the demand as such does not change drastically (even if it did, demand may not reduce) from one year to the next. Therefore, the trucking and bus industry always requires long-term planning. With the pandemic, the planning processes have telescoped down to just a few days. Every day, the volatility in demand and uncertainties on even short- and medium-term sustenance is haunting transport entrepreneurs since the lockdown.
Making things worse is the lack of coherence and transparency in key policy decisions by the governments, say from the rules on lockdown and inter-state movement, tolls and taxation, diesel pricing, and so on. It does appear as if the policymakers have completely lost the plot in what they are doing, without identifying the critical priorities of the day and ignoring the aftereffects that their decisions taken without due deliberations and expert considerations. The government’s incessant silence on SOS calls from truck and bus industry bodies to help their businesses survive is also creating undue apprehension in the industry circles.
Let me get this straight. Take a deep breath, be confident. We cannot afford to remain either exasperated or be lethargic, aloof, and overtly optimistic by ignoring the harsh realities in front of us. We have to stay rational and critical in our thinking to bring some clarity on things happening around us. We have to keep our eyes and ears open for authentic information and opinion, without making prior judgments on whether they are positive or negative news.
The trajectory of COVID-19 is largely unknown. All we get from experts is that the pandemic is here to stay for quite a while, and a potent vaccine for masses is at least a year away. With these uncertainties in place, it is quite natural that people and businesses try to resume normal life. Although new cases are reaching new heights every day across the country, we are entering the ‘unlock’ phases. But there is no ‘on’ button to restart in a go. It is going to take a hell lot of time. Logistics demand and passenger volumes will not return to their pre-COVID levels anytime soon, if ever.
With decentralized lockdown and restriction on public, the phased closure and re-opening of businesses and public transport, the new-found ability to work from home, financial distress on masses and their spending, and fear of the pandemic wandering outside our homes will depress demand to a great extent in the coming months. All that we can hope at this moment is to emerge from the current impasse into something closely resembling some normality. It wouldn’t match pre-COVID levels (even things were not any good back then for the transport industry), but a new normality involving physical distancing norms and personal hygiene measures as new ways of public life. A scenario where there is at least some stability in our daily lives and business prospects; a normality involving seamless inter-state movement of goods, easy and cheaper availability of essential commodities, and an improved role of public transport for all essential and restrictive movement of people instead of private vehicles.
Let’s face it. This is the new normal the best we can try to achieve in the immediate future. If only we make peace with it – without any blind optimism that things will get back to normal pretty soon – can we set our priorities right and make smart, definitive moves. Knee-jerk reactions and moving back-and-forth with our business or policy decisions will not instill stability in our activities. Planning processes needs to be much more cautious and calculative than ever.
Further, any demand contraction of this sort will crush the economics of any logistics and public transport operators, not to mention the lives of millions of people involved directly or indirectly in this sector. That’s where we need some reassurance from the government side. With the finances of the operators getting decimated, the governments should recognize them as ‘essential sectors’ of national importance and offer some patronage in terms of taxation and toll rate cuts, subsidies-as-usual to STUs, and a practical diesel pricing. Trucks and buses are far more flexible in their operations in critical times, as this crisis has demonstrated. They stand for the fights against the pandemic, in the front-line offering essential services. It’s high time the governments stand with the truck and bus industry. The entire nation will follow suit.
I’d love to know what you think, email your views to dhiyanesh@motorindiaonline.in