by ramkumar ramamoorthybalancing lives and livelihoods is tough even during the best of times doing so while battling an unprecedented pandemic without a playbook makes it many times harder many governments including tamil nadu used lockdowns in the early stages of the pandemic to strengthen preparedness health infrastructure essential supplies and citizen awareness on preventive measures and hygiene with limited insight into the spread or treatment of coronavirus a sledgehammer approach worked well initially until we were faced with the conundrum of whether lives and livelihoods were indeed benefiting from a lockdown or becoming their casualtieslockdown cripples economic activity and therefore livelihoods extended lockdowns impact not just businesses and state finances but also individual finances and affordability of healthcare the repercussions of which can potentially be catastrophic what then is the answeras indias second oldest chamber of commerce the madras chamber of commerce and industry mcci has seen many disruptions and gamechanging events in its 184year history spanish flu great depression antihindi imposition agitation fight for independence emergency economic liberalisation and others for the most part tamil nadu deftly balanced economic growth with robust developmental outcomes this was made possible by bold economic and social moves such as embracing the manufacturing wave more than a 100 years ago establishing industrial estates and urbanising many towns building nuclear power capability building robust educational infrastructure and developing a primarytotertiary health ecosystem in the statethe current challenge presents another opportunity to the state government to take similar bold measures and allow for normal economic activity to resume with necessary safeguards and restrictions the state today is in a much better position to implement these measures by getting the citizens employers and civil society to act with greater responsibility stricter implementation of safety mandates such as masks and physical distancing and aggressive testing and isolation hold the answertamil nadu has more factories operational sezs and msmes than any other state while larger companies with strong balance sheets can hold up for long msmes are particularly vulnerable a recent mcci survey of 1000 msmes in tamil nadu revealed that close to 50 are struggling to pay salaries and rent and 25 fear obsolete or degraded inventories industries and companies operate as part of larger global or regional supply chains business continuity operational stability and fulfilment predictability are critical for them to meet their commitments and win newer businesses notably in the past two months almost all companies have demonstrated their ability to ensure the health wellbeing and safety of employees returning to office factories and plantsin this context episodic opening and closing of operations can severely impair the trust brand and reputation that these companies have assiduously built over the years the collective might of these brands is what makes brand tamil nadu a formidable force the time for bold decisions is here and now for us to collectively emerge stronger on the other sidethe writer is president of the madras chamber of commerce industry