Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday announced Rs 1.5 lakh crore of additional credit for small and medium businesses, more funds for the healthcare sector, loans to tourism agencies and guides, and waiver of visa fee for foreign tourists as part of a package to support the pandemic-hit economy.
Together with previously announced Rs 93,869 crore spending on providing free foodgrains to the poor till November and additional Rs 14,775 crore fertiliser subsidy, the stimulus package – mostly made up of government guarantee to banks and microfinance institutions for loans they extend to COVID-hit sectors – totalled up to Rs 6.29 lakh crore. Addressing a press conference, Sitharaman said, “Economic relief measures are being announced.” She provided Rs 23,220 crore of additional funding for setting up children and paediatric care/paediatric beds at hospitals to prepare healthcare infrastructure to deal with any emergency arising for children.
To incentivize job creation, the government committed to paying the employer and employee’s share to provident fund (PF) for all new recruitments done till March 2022. Previously, the government paid Rs 902 crore for 21.42 lakh beneficiaries of 79,577 establishments.
With the tourism sector being hit hard by the pandemic, she announced up to Rs 10 lakh loan to tourist agencies and Rs 1 lakh loan to tourist guides while waiver of visa fee for the first five lakh foreign tourists visiting India after travel restrictions ease. Tourist visa fee waiver will cost the government Rs 100 crore.
Other announcements included an additional Rs 19,041 crore for providing broadband internet cover to all village panchayats, an extension of tenure of production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for large scale electronics manufacturing by a year and Rs 88,000 crore of insurance cover for goods exporters. Sitharaman said the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme is being expanded to Rs 4.5 lakh crore from Rs 3 lakh crore. Under the scheme, a collateral-free loan is provided by banks to small businesses and the government stands guarantee for any default.
.Another Rs 1.1 lakh crore loan guarantee scheme for COVID-affected sectors was announced. This included Rs 50,000 crore for the health sector, with a three-year single loan of Rs 100 crore carrying an interest of 7.95 per cent. Loans to other sectors such as tourism and hospitality would come at 8.25 per cent per annum interest rate.
