Government steps up efforts to take inputs from ministries
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has held a series of meetings with key ministers, including Home Minister Amit Shah and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and top officials of the government to finalise the second economic package targeted at sectors most affected by the lockdown to check Covid-19 spread.
The meetings involving Shah, Sitharaman and other officials of the key economic ministries are taking place for the last few days and the idea is to get inputs on the impact of the current lockdown on different segments of the economy and identify immediate measures that may be required as a relief and revival strategy, sources privy to the developments said.
As part of this effort, Modi had met Shah, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri on Friday. The meeting was also attended by Cabinet Secretary Rajeev Gauba and the Principal Secretary to the PM.
Meetings were also held with commerce and MSME ministries on Thursday. On Saturday, the Prime Minister had a review meeting with the Agriculture Ministry to deliberate on the issues and reforms related to the farm sector.
With the government permitting various economic activities to start from May 4 by dividing the country into red, orange and green zones, the immediate concern is to support specific sectors through a package, so that businesses regain
lost ground and economic activities gradually return back to normal. The government is also
looking at giving a boost to the investment climate through a series of reform initiatives.
Sources said that the government may take a phased approach in this regard the next set of stimulus may have a clear focus on the concerns of the SME segments which have been hit hard due to the Covid-19 outbreak and resultant nationwide lockdown. Revival of small businesses is a key concern for the government.
The Finance Ministry has suggested to the PMO to set up a dedicated fund for micro, small and medium enterprises that could be used to provide both interest free loans to identified industries as well as capital support required to bring enterprises back in business after the lockdown. The size of the fund would be large to extend help to a large number of entities.
The MSME fund may also be used to provide interest subvention on loans taken by the sector to reduce their burden and allow some of these labour intensive segments to operate smoothly.
“The contours of the package are being finalised, and the actual timing of the announcement is still to be worked out. But it would be done soon,” said an official source.
Though the next set of package from the government to fight the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 outbreak is expected to be much wider to cover the concerns of the India Inc.