The unprecedented shutdown of economic activities led to a colossal loss of livelihoods. To understand the impact of this national lockdown on rural households’ income, the paper empirically examines the determinants of reduction in their income, and the effectiveness of government’s response in mitigating their economic hardships. The study is based on a comprehensive telephonic survey of 2,599 rural households from five eastern states—Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal conducted during the lockdown period, June–July 2020. The econometric results highlight that (i) a number of socio-economic and demographic factors influenced income loss of rural households during the lockdown, (ii) the impact was relatively higher on the migrant labour, though it differed across the eastern states, and (iii) government cash and in-kind assistance under various social protection schemes were timely but requires expansion in both coverage and outreach.
