Centre’s economic package may have small trader focus

THE GOVT MAY ALSO CONSIDER A REVISION IN THE SCHEME LAUNCHED LAST YEAR TO PROVIDE PENSION TO SMALL TRADERS

nNEW DELHI: The government is working on a relief package for small retailers, an official directly involved in drafting it said on condition of anonymity, adding that small retailers have been hit hard by the lockdown.

Last month, trader body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), representing more than 70 million small retailers, demanded bank loans at special interest rates, a governmentbacked insurance for traders and employees,andawageprotection plan or subsidy that will allow owners of kirana (Mom and Pop) stores to pay their workers.

The government’s decision to allow the sale of non-essential products through standalone shops is widely seen as being aimed at small retailers.

The government may also consider a revision in the scheme launched last year to provide pension to small traders. The pension plan was aimed to give old age protection and social security to retail traders, shopkeepers and self-employed persons whose annual income did not exceed ~1.5 crore.

India’s small retailers run 12 million shops, employ 40 million people, and are responsible for an annual business of ~700 billion, according to a report published by Assocham.

“Small retailers need to continue to pay rentals and expenses like electricity, etc, while their stores have been shut in case they are not carrying essential goods or are operating at lower than 100% efficiency due to lack of

NEWDELHI: India needs a big stimulus package, bigger than the one it announced in March to revive the economy which is hurting from the Covid-19 outbreak and the lockdown enforced to combat it , Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee said on Tuesday , adding that the emphasis should be on generating demand.

One way to do this would be to just put money in the hands of consumers, he added.

Banerjee, 59, who shared the 2019 Nobel prize for economics with his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for an “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty,” cited the examples of countries that have unveiled sizeable stimulus packages to boost their economies.

“That’s the reason a lot of us have been saying that we need a stimulus package,” Banerjee said in a video conversation with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. “That’s what the US is doing, Japan is doing, Europe is doing.”