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Easy credit for MSMEs, food grains for migrant poor: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s key decisions in 2 days
Sitharaman has held two press conferences since PM Modi announced a Rs 20 lakh crore package. She will hold her third press briefing at 4 pm today.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced a financial package for the poor and vulnerable sectors which he said will help them tide over the coronavirus pandemic.
The package is worth Rs 20 lakh crore, which the Prime Minister said is 10 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product or GDP. In his address to the nation, PM Modi said that details of the package will be shared in the coming days.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has been doing just that. In two days since the announced, she has held two press conference in which the finance minister has been announcing the parts of that package.
Day 1:
In her first press conference on Wednesday, Sitharaman announced schemes totalling about Rs 5.9 lakh crore. The first tranche focused on providing easy credit facilities to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs).
She also announced a fund for debt-laden electricity distribution companies or discoms, a partial wage support scheme (for two months) for small companies and ways to put more cash in the hands of people. This was in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, a bid to make India self-reliant to revive the economy which has been battered by a prolonged lockdown since March 25 to check the spread of Covid-19.
Day 2:
Unveiling the second tranche at a media briefing on Thursday, Sitharaman said that it focusses on small enterprises, street vendors and small farmers.
Totalling Rs 3.16 lakh crore, the schemes announced yesterday include 5 kg rice or wheat and 1kg ‘chana’ (chickpea) a month, for 80 million migrant families for two months (which will cost Rs 3,500 crore). The schemes also provide a Rs 1,500-crore interest discount scheme aimed at 30 million units, a Rs 5,000-crore special credit facility for five million street vendors, a Rs 6,000-crore Compensatory Afforestation Management & Planning Authority (CAMPA) fund for providing jobs to tribals, a Rs 30,000 core emergency working capital scheme for farmers, a Rs 70,000-crore boost to lower-middle class housing and Rs 2-lakh crore concessional credit offer to 25 million farmers through Kisan Credit Cards.
The Rs 20 lakh crore package includes a Rs 1.7 lakh crore package already announced on March 26 and monetary measures aggregating to around Rs 5.7 lakh crore taken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) since March 27.
