Page 26 - XITE Magazine 2021

Annual Magazine

The Social Impact of
The Social Impact of Alen Kerketta
The Social Impact of
BBA Semester I
Covid-19 : A Glimpse into
Covid-19 : A Glimpse into
Covid-19 : A Glimpse into
Life in Jamshedpur
Life in Jamshedpur
Life in Jamshedpur
Aksharik Sarkar
BBA Semester I
Let's start with an interesting fact about the name 'covid19'. It is an
abbreviation where, 'CO' stands for corona and 'VI' stands for virus and
'D' for disease and 19 for the year it all started. We all know that the
virus has severely impacted our society and brought along with it a
multitude of social crisis, especially to the middle class family. We
chose the middle class as it is the stratum that builds our economy and Simran Khanna
BBA Semester I
resiliently works towards having a safe and secure future. It has
always been considered as the backbone of any economy and has a
crucial social and political impact. In their aspiration for a better
livelihood, they provide a dynamic force of change. However, the
corona virus pandemic came as a crushing blow to the dreams of
millions of middle class people in India and worsened India's economic Vanila Joseph
BBA Semester I
woes since early 2020. We, a group of first year students of XITE
planned to find out first hand, the social impact of this pandemic on the
middle class families of our very own town, Jamshedpur.

Alen visited Priya who used to work as an HR manager in a company
while her husband used to work as a field manager. Both of them have Ravi Mahato
lost their jobs during the pandemic. Their 4yr old daughter Mena is in BBA Semester I
prep and they are unable to pay her fees. Their little savings was
almost depleted and they were already short of food and other
supplies. They complained that although it is people like them who pay
taxes on time, the government does nothing for the woes of the middle class.

Aksharik talked to Taniya who recounted the entire year 2020. Her family was staying locked inside their
home. As the head of the family couldn't open their small shop, which was their only source of earning, they too
had to fall back on their savings. To cope with the reduced flow of cash, they had to remove all household help.
The children missed school and socializing with friends and had to help at home with the extra work. Food was
only a way of sustenance and luxury eating was totally out of question. Their whole way of life had to be revised
which sometimes was difficult to adjust to and monotony and depression became common. Their house
building was still under-construction building and as construction was stopped they faced multiple problems,
the major being water scarcity as the pump had still not been installed. Taniya also recounts how neighbours
became intolerant and fought with each other.

Simran visited Mr. Gupta (name changed), who earned 15 thousand per month working in a garment shop
which was temporarily closed during the lockdown. He had four extra family members visiting him during that
time who couldn't get back due to the lockdown. As the sole earner, he was in grave trouble with his finances.
During the hard times, they were eating only two frugal meals to save as much as possible. It was an extremely
tough scenario said Mr. Gupta and still shivers when he thinks how they coped during that time.
Vanila met Seema who had conceived in the 1st week of March, 2020. She was really happy that the family of
two was going to be family of three. Though Seema and her family was not from a very well to do background,
but like every mother she wanted to give her child the whole world. Her husband worked in a private company,

24 Volume-VIII, 2020