72% Indians not inclined to travel for next 3 months: Survey

Hyderabad: With the countrywide Corona virus lockdown 3.0 ending on the 17 May, citizens are waiting for the next series of steps the government would take to bring normal life back in order.

A platform called LocalCircles conducted a survey to find out the measures people would want to be implemented after the lockdown. More than 21,000 people residing in over 228 districts of the country participated in the survey.

People were asked if they would take up any personal travel in the coming three months if public transport is restored. Interestingly, 72 per cent said they will not travel unless it is an emergency while 11 per cent said they will surely travel. Nine per cent said they will not travel at all and four per cent said they are likely to travel.

Interestingly, the survey conducted on 3 May recorded 74 per cent approval by citizens regarding continuing lockdown in districts with high-risk rate of infection. But, this percentage has come down to 45 per cent on Tuesday.

While people in the survey were in support of relaxations in the green and orange zones, they were concerned about how some districts with high virus load are being treated on par with other red zone districts in terms of relaxations.

Fourteen districts in India with high virus load were identified by the Niti Aayog in India. The intensity and the number of cases of COVID-19 are more than 500 in these districts. They include Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Pune, Indore, Thane, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Surat, Kolkata, Agra, Hyderabad and Bhopal.

However, 81 per cent of citizens support lockdown relaxations with social distancing norms at offices, shops, and so on after 17 May in the red zone districts with comparatively less risk of infection.

Survey Demographics

More than 21,000 responses were received from over 12,500 citizens in over 228 districts. Around 63 per cent of respondents were men while 37 per cent of respondents were women. Around 63 per cent were from Tier-1 areas, 22 per cent from Tier-2 and 15 per cent of respondents were from Tier-3 and beyond places. The survey was conducted via the LocalCircles platform and all participants are Indian citizens who are registered with LocalCircles.