A Cross-Sectional Study to Assess the Financial Hardships of Rural Households with Special Reference to COVID-19

Abstract

Abstract The COVID-19 epidemic had an impact on the economic well-being of rural households, forcing them to adopt a new survival strategy. The Government of India also introduced several relief programmes to help the common people who were struggling financially as a result of the lockdown during the epidemic. The main objective of this paper is to assess the access of rural households to economic relief schemes and also the economic condition of rural households during the COVID-19 epidemic. The paper is based on a survey of 300 households in 30 villages of district Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. We found a significant relationship between access to free ration and social category (χ2 = 7.27, p < 0.05) and to the level of education of the head of the household (χ2 = 15.94, p = 0.01). We also found that Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes households experienced lack of ration or daily necessities ten times more than households of general category during the COVID-19 epidemic. Similarly, households of Other Backward Classes experienced lack of ration four times more than households of General category. There was substantial impact of COVID-19 epidemic on the financial status of rural households.