China has come roaring back from the devastation of Covid-19, and the United States, Europe and Japan are finding their feet. But the hundreds of millions of laborers and shopkeepers who keep India’s economy running still can’t find relief.

India’s economy shrank 7.5 percent in the three months that ended in September compared with a year earlier, government figures showed on Friday. The data reflects the deepening of India’s severest recession since at least 1996, when the country first began publishing its gross domestic product numbers.

The new figures firmly ensconced India’s position among the world’s worst-performing major economies, despite expansive government spending designed to rescue the thousands of small businesses severely battered by its long, hastily imposed lockdown.

Nikhil Das, a 62-year-old manufacturer of silk ties and scarves in New Delhi, says his business is teetering on the edge of collapse. His sales, which depend on demand from luxury shops and airport retailers, have fallen by four-fifths. He needs payments from customers to make up for his manufacturing costs, but retailers who can’t move his wares still owe him more than $50,000.

He has idled six workers he once paid for each tie and scarf they made, and he has been treated for stomach pain that his doctor has attributed to stress.

“The money supply chain is broken,” Mr. Das said. “It is a constant source of tension to me.”