Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Urban Socio-economic Vulnerability and Wellbeing for Integrated Planning: A Quantitative Enquiry in the Katwa Municipality, West Bengal

ABSTRACT

The present study focuses on the quantitative investigation of economic vulnerability and assesses the perception survey carried out among 75 residents of Katwa Municipality, an up-growing urban area in Purba Barddhaman District, West Bengal. To estimate the socio-economic vulnerability during the lockdown, standardised factor scores have been calculated in the analysis of principal components and GIS-based mapping has been employed also. Among the total working population of the surveyed household, about 20% have changed their occupation, wages have been reduced by 35 and 35% have lost their occupation during the lockdown period. The highly socio-economic vulnerability has been observed in the wards where households and population are also high. The regression coefficient shows that the increasing trend of marginal other workers has the significantly (p < 0.1) highest marginal effect on the socio-economic vulnerability. The Likert scale measuring perception indicated that the majority of the respondents agreed with their socio-economic vulnerabilities caused by lockdown during the pandemic situation. The significant outcome of the study indicates the initiation of diversified income generation opportunities and deliberates its contribution to the formation of location-specific planning for the socio-economic development and integrative management of the study area. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.