How metro cities affected after COVID-19

COVID-19 has brought a lot of unthought changes in the world. India’s densely populated metro cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, and Bengaluru – are among the worst affected cities due to COVID-19.

It feels like metro cities, which provide food, shelter, and clothing to people of different economic backgrounds, coming from all corners of the country to earn their bread and butter, are left abandoned soon after the covid break out.

Since the 1st lockdown was announced, everything has become uncertain. Factories and offices were shut down. People started stocking essential items. The stock market crashed, and whatnot. It was utter chaos.

Those who were fortunate enough started to work from home and got accustomed to the new normal. Contrarily, a lot of others had lost and are still losing their jobs. From migrant labourers to IT employees, many are left jobless. 

Having left with no choice, the migrant labourers had left these metro cities and moved back to their villages because living in such expensive metro cities with no source of income is next to impossible. Some of them travelled thousands of kilometres on foot to reach their homes while some of them lost their lives while doing this. However, for the sake of livelihoods and feeding the empty stomachs, a lot of them had to resume working after a few months.

Though a lot of NGOs, celebrities, and individuals came forward to offer help, and they did help a lot of migrant labourers, but a lost life cannot be easily forgotten.

While all of this happened, the busiest of roads of metro cities, infamous for their traffic, were left abandoned for obvious reasons. No one would have ever imagined this. Since the factories were closed temporarily and there were almost no vehicles on the road, the pollution level dropped significantly. Not only in India, but this effect was also observed worldwide. The rivers started rejuvenating and the air became more and more cleaner. What could not be done after spending lakhs of rupees for years and years, was done within a few weeks. 

Nature healed itself.

But obviously, the lockdowns could not be imposed forever. People had to go to work to keep the country moving, especially metro cities, where major businesses, factories, and offices are situated. Schools and colleges need to be opened and businesses needed to be functional. 

And once this process of unlocking started, gradually all other organized and unorganized industries that bloom in the shadow of such big industries started to flourish.

The process of unlocking started and soon the metro cities started to get their beautiful chaos.

However…

The beautiful chaos was short-lived as the rush to reopen as well as inadequate contact tracing has led to a spike in numerous cases and deaths.