MMS FORMULA TO CRANK UP ECONOMY

India is heading for a “deep and prolonged economic slowdown”, former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh said on Monday as he shared three steps, which he felt the Narendra Modi-led NDA government should immediately take, to stem the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

In an email interaction with BBC, the senior Congress said economic slowdown in the country is “a humanitarian crisis” and that the “government’s shock and awe approach to the lockdown has caused tremendous pain to people.” “Perhaps a lockdown at that stage was an inevitable choice. The suddenness of the announcement and the stringency of the lockdown were thoughtless and insensitive,” he said.

Dr Singh offered ‘ways’ to ensure normalcy in the near future. The government must “ensure people’s livelihoods are protected and they have spending power through significant direct cash assistance” he said. The Centre must also make adequate capital available for businesses through “governmentbacked credit guarantee programmes”.

He added that “the government should fix the financial sector through “institutional autonomy and processes”.

The former prime minister hinted that the Centre wasn’t swift in involving the states in India’s fight against Covid-19. “Public health emergencies such as this are best dealt with locally by local administrators and public health officials, with broad guidelines from the Centre. Perhaps, we should have devolved the Covid-19 battle to the state and local administrations much sooner,” Singh told BBC. He said that higher borrowing was inevitable and that “we must not be shy of borrowing, but we must be prudent on how we use that borrowing”.

The govt’s shock and awe approach to the lockdown has caused tremendous pain to people. Perhaps a lockdown at that stage was an inevitable choice. The suddenness of the announcement and the stringency of the lockdown were thoughtless and insensitive.