Nirmala Sitharaman, the Finance Minister of India today has announced an array of measures to deal with the economic distress caused due to the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown announced to deal with the current situation.

Ms. Nirmala had already announced a slew of measures on march 24^th which comprised extension of tax deadlines, easing minimum balance norms for savings account and increasing threshold of insolvency filing to Rs one crore from Rs one lakh.

The Finance Minister said that the PM Gareeb Kalyan Scheme will include Rs. 1.7 lakh crore, which includes both food security and cash transfer as well. Since, doctors, nurses, paramedics, sanitation workers and ASHA workers are the frontlines of the pandemic battle, the FM is planning to provide insurance cover of Rupees 50 lakh to them. In addition to the 5 kg of wheat or rice that is already given to the people of the country, an extra 5 kilograms of rice/wheat will be provided free of cost to around 80 crore people through Public Distribution Systems. Not just that, one kilogram of preferred and region-specific choice of pulse will also be provided.

Direct transfer of cash through Direct Bank Transfer

For the Indian farmers, the first instalment of Rupees 2000 of PM Kisan will be provided during the first week of April and over 8.69 crore farmers will be benefitted from this. An ex-gratia amount of 1000 rupees for the next three months will be provided in two instalments to 3 crore widows and senior citizens of the country.

The Women Jan Dhan account holders will receive ex-gratia of rupees 500 for the next three months and Women Ujjawala Scheme beneficiaries will receive free cylinders for the next three months, which will benefit 8.3 crore Below Poverty Line families.

Also, Prime Minister Modi had announced an Economic Task Force to be chaired by the Finance Minister.

The 3-weeks lock down, will not only affect the revenue stream of organizations and enterprises but also hit-hard their bottom lines, most rating agencies have revised downwards their Q4 economic growth projections and also the growth projections for next Fiscal year FY21.