Any fresh lockdowns to counter the second wave of covid will significantly hurt the economy, N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons said.

"We cannot have a full lockdown. It has to be managed in micro segments," he said at the sixth National Management Conclave of All India Management Association (AIMA).

"We have to protect the people and we also have to protect the economy. It is not a binary option," Chandrasekaran said. He said that the vaccine production in the country needs to be ramped up to the level of mass production by replicating factory capacities.

Chandrasekaran said that a single online platform with all information on the availability of hospital beds, vaccines, oxygen and other Covid related queries is the need of the hour. "The best thing we can do immediately is to have predictive analytics to know where the cases will rise next," he said, adding that there will be acceleration in digital technology in every business and the public health sphere.