IPS Executive Director Dushni Weerakoon noted that the IMF policy prescription would come at a severe cost to the welfare state of the country. She further added that the current economic crises that had befallen the country were greater than anything witnessed even during the civil war or tsunami.
Weerakoon was speaking briefly on April 19 in her remarks at the 13th South Asia Economic Summit held in New Delhi. Weerakon signalled that the state if it engaged with an IMF program would have to make very difficult cuts in social spending that are essential to maintaining the livelihoods of a significant part of the population. Weerakon noted that there was a huge gulf in access to IT infrastructure and that this was exacerbating the political divide between rich and poor. She noted that high skilled jobs were less impacted than low skilled jobs during the pandemic. Weerakon said with technological change there could be huge job losses in the textile sector which was very important to the broader South Asian region.
Weerakon added that there was a need for data privacy laws to be drafted across the region as the advent of digitization was making fundamental changes to the way many interactions take place.
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