India backs COVID stressed sectors with $60 billion loan
Vaccines available in country are effective against variants; India overtakes US in number of vaccine doses administered; free of charge tourist visa for 500,000 planned; New Delhi to share vaccine tech with 50 nations ‘free of cost’
India has extended a federal guarantee on bank loans to health and tourism services while waiving visa fees for 500,000 foreign tourists, the finance minister said on Monday, stepping up support for the pandemic-hit economy.
The government will expand federal guarantees on loans to businesses to 4.5 trillion rupees ($60.7 billion) from an earlier limit of 3 trillion rupees, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters.
These measures entail enhancement of existing relief schemes such as ECGLS and support for state governments.
Besides, a total of four new measures were announced to provide loans to micro credit borrowers as well as tourism industry.
Further, Sitharaman announced Rs 50,000 crore guaranteed loan for creation of medical infrastructure.
She said that ECLGS scheme will be enhanced by Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Furthermore, she announced a Rs 1.1 lakh crore loan guarantee scheme for Covid-affected sectors. She said that first 5 lakh tourist visas will be issued free of charge. This step will be taken once the visa issuance start.
Apart from these the Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana has been extended till March 31, 2022 entailing government PF liability of employees and employers depending on the size of the organisation. On exports, the minister announced support extended to National Export Insurance Account (NEIA) worth Rs 33,000 crore for project exports from India.
In the UAE, the UAE Ministry of Health reveled the number of coronavirus cases in the country, urging residents to follow all the precautionary measures issued by the authorities in the country.
The authorities said they have conducted 232,544 COVID-19 tests in the past 24 hours. The tests reveled 2,040 new coronavirus cases. The ministry said 1,988 individuals had recovered from COVID-19, and they are in good health.
The authorities also announced the death of 6 people due to COVID-19 related complications.
The ministry has announced that 37,491 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered during the past 24 hours.
The total number of doses provided up to today stands at 15,111,234 with a rate of vaccine distribution of 152.79 doses per 100 people.
The vaccination drive is in line with the Ministry’s plan to provide the vaccine to all members of society and acquire immunity, which will help reduce the number of cases and control the spread of the virus.
Dubai-based airline Emirates has approved the use of IATA Travel Pass for its customers flying to 10 cities of the world.
The prestigious airline said it is planning to make the pass available to all its routes.
Emirates officials said that the airline has partnered with UAE government COVID-19 tracking app, Al Hosn to ease travel procedures for its customers.
The UAE government said the app is functioning normally ater a brief glitch that affected the services last week. An SMS and email with an activation code would be sent to passengers urging them to downloading the IATA Travel Pass app.
The Travel Pass App is available to IOS and Android users.
The Abu Dhabi Emergency, Crisis and Disasters Commitee has approved allowing only those vaccinated to enter some public places.
While many wealthy countries have brought down infections through rapid vaccinations, outbreaks are still raging from Bangladesh and Indonesia to South America — many fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant that was first detected in India.
Russia has seen an explosion of new cases in the last two weeks because of this variant, with its largest cities Moscow and Saint Petersburg posting record deaths on Monday for the second consecutive day.
Authorities have pushed vaccine-sceptic citizens to get a shot in a bid to stem the outbreak.
Britain will lit most of its remaining COVID-19 restrictions on July 19 in what has been dubbed “Freedom Day”, the government said on Monday despite fears that an increase in coronavirus cases could lead to more deaths.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government is again under fire ater the resignation of his health minister Mat Hancock for breaking the restrictions by kissing his aide, had hoped to unlock Britain’s economy last week.
500,000 foreign tourist visas to be given free in India; UAE reports 2,040 new COVID-19 cases, 6 deaths; Emirates offers IATA Travel Pass to travellers flying to 10 cities; Abu Dhabi to allow only vaccinated people at some public places.
Warning that the second wave of COVID-19 “still not over,” central government’s 29th meet of the Group of Ministers (GOM), on Monday, advised people to follow COVID-19 appropriate behaviour to keep themselves safe.
The GOM clarified that all anti-covid vaccines, currently available in the country, are found effective against alpha, beta, gamma and delta variants of the coronavirus.
The GOM strongly reiterated the importance of COVID-19 appropriate behaviour at a time when restrictions are being lited across the country.
Besides, higher level of continued awareness building through sustained Information, Education and Communication (IEC) campaigns was highlighted.
Dr VK Paul emphasised on the benefits of mask-wearing and hand hygiene while ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava also cautioned that the “second wave of Covid-19 has still not subsided”, noting that 80 districts in the country still have high positivity rate.
Bhargava, who also holds charge of secretary (health research), advised against any laxity at this stage. Keeping aside rumours that COVID-19 vaccines available in India will fail in protecting people from new variants, Bhargava clarified that all vaccines being administered in the country have been found effective against the alpha, beta, gamma and delta variants of the virus.
India reported on Monday 46,148 new COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, data from the health ministry showed.
The South Asian country’s total COVID-19 case load now stands at 30.27 million, while total fatalities are at 396,730, the data showed. India’s coronavirus-related deaths rose by 979 overnight.
India has achieved another milestone in its ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive by overtaking the US in terms of total number of doses administered so far, securing highest position among top six countries of the world.
India has so far administered Covid vaccine doses to 32,36,63,297 people while the number of people inoculated so far in the US are 32,33,27,328. If compared to the timeline, India’s Covid vaccination drive started on January 16 this year almost one month ater the similar exercise was started by the US on December 14 last year.
India’s cumulative vaccination coverage has exceeded 32.36 crores on Sunday.
A total of 32,36,63,297 vaccine doses have been administered through 43,21,898 sessions, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) citing provisional report received till 7:00am on Monday. The Ministry said that 17,21,268 vaccine doses were administered in the last 24 hours.
Foreigners requiring a visa to visit India can avail themselves of gratis permission to travel to India as part of a COVID-19 recovery stimulus announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday.
The free visa scheme will remain in force until March 31 next year.
Sitharaman urged foreign tourists to take advantage of the scheme as quickly as possible once India resumes issuance of tourist visas. At present, India is not issuing visas in view of the risk of spreading COVID-19 from any influx of tourists.
The announcement of free visas suggests that this is set to change.
Fee has been waived on the first 500,000 visas to be issued once the process resumes.
Once the limit of half a million visas is reached before 31st March 2022, those who apply for visa aterwards have to make the payment.
Therefore, the minister suggested prospective tourists to take advantage of the scheme as quickly as possible.
Sitharaman said the government will forgo one billion Indian rupees (around Dhs50 million) in visa fees because of this scheme and other incentives to the tourism sector, which are part of a financial stimulus announced today to kickstart recovery of economic activity, hit by the pandemic.
India is all set to share ‘ free of cost’ its COVID-19 vaccination technology with more than 50 countries from Latin America, Africa and Asia.
CEO of National Health Authority Dr RS Sharma made the revelation while addressing the 2nd Public Health Summit 2021 organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here.