Help For The Poor & Marginalized Announced, That For Industry & Loan Account Holders Maybe On The Way
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2020-03-26 17:31:39
About the Author
The Centre has unveiled the much-anticipated economic package to alleviate the sufferings of the poor and marginalized classes who have been crushed by the disruption caused by Covid-19. Announcing the details of the package, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that it was the duty of the government to ensure that "no one will go hungry". The major decisions taken by the government were:
1. Medical Insurance of Rs 50 lakh per person for three months for medical workers like nurses, paramedics and sanitation staff who were at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19
2. Under Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, an additional 5 kgs. Of rice or wheat and 1 kg. of pulses to be provided per household
3. More than 20 crore women Jan Dhan Account holders to get DBT of Rs 500 per month for the next three months
4. Under the Ujjwala LPG scheme, registered households to get one LPG cylinder free for the next three months
5. Daily wages under MNREGA increased to Rs 202 from Rs 182. This will benefit 5cr workers
6. Farmers getting Rs 6000 annually under PM-Kisan will get an additional Rs 2000 and it will be transferred to their accounts in the first week of April
7. Ex-gratia of Rs 1000 in two installments will be given to poor widows, divyangs and senior citizens
8. The government will pay the EPF contribution of both employers and employees for companies employing less than 100 workers where more than 90 percent are earning less than Rs 15000
9. Workers can now withdraw as a non-refundable advance and amount equal to 75% of their balance in the EPFO or three months' wages, whichever is less.
10. A welfare fund of Rs 31000cr for construction workers is proposed. It will benefit 3.5cr workers.
11. Women self-help groups to get Rs 20 lakh (up from Rs 10 lakh earlier) collateral-free loan under the D D Upadhyay National Rural Mission Scheme
This is the first economic package that addresses the difficulties likely to be faced by the poor and marginalized class including workers in small entities, migrant workforce, women and other disadvantaged sections of the society. It will go a long way in at least helping them partly tide over the problems. The decision to cover medical workers for three months by Rs 50 lakh medical insurance will ensure that they will feel cared for as if anything untoward was to happen to them, the insurance will take care of the treatment costs.
Although the finance minister failed to address the problem of industry and loan holders, it has been reported that the secretary of the department of financial services in the Finance Ministry, Debashish Panda, has already written to the RBI to consider a bailout package for loan account holders and industries that will be most affected by the Covid-19 disruption. It is expected that a broad-based package that might include moratorium of three months on loan repayment (both principal and interest) and relaxation in norms for classifying loans as bad, among other measures for specific sectors, will be announced by the RBI shortly.
