Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced the details of the 2nd tranche of Economic Relief Package for “Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan” amid COVID-19 pandemic. This 2nd tranche is the part of economic package of Rs 20 lakh crore has been announced with the prime objective of making India self-reliant.
The second tranche of Economic Relief Package for “Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan” is dedicated to migrant workers, street vendors, small traders, self employed people & small farmers.
During her address, she mentioned that the 2nd tranche comprises of 9 different measures according to the given composition: 3 related to migrant workers, one related to shishu loan within mudra, one related to street vendors, one for housing, one related to employment generation largely for tribals, and two related to farmers.
Highlights of measures announced in 2nd tranche, as part of Economic Relief Package for “Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan”:
Migrant Workers:
1. Free Food Grain supply to migrants for 2 months
- Those migrants who are neither under National Food Security Act nor the holders of any State Card, will be provided 5 Kg of grains per person and 1 kg Chana per family per month for a period of two months. With this, about 8 crore migrants are expected to be benefitted from the above facility.
- This intervention will cost about Rs 3500 Crore which would be completely borne by the Government of India.
- State governments would be responsible for the implementation, identification of migrants as well as the food distribution
2. To benefit migrant workers, GoI is coming up with National Portability of Cards i.e. “One Nation One Ration card”
- This scheme will enable the migrant workers to access Public Distribution Ration from any Fair price Shop in the country.
- This scheme is expected to benefit around 67 crore beneficiaries i.e. 83% of the PDS population by August, 2020. This is expected to cover 100% i.e. all the state and UTs will complete full FPS automation by March 2021.
3. Affordable Rental Housing Complexes for Migrant Workers & Urban Poors
To provide houses to migrant workers & urban poors at affordable prices, the Government of India is going to launch a scheme under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). This would be done by:
- Converting government funded housing in the cities into Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) under PPP through concessionaire agreements.
- Incentivizing manufacturing units, industries, institutions, associations to develop ARHC on their private land and it would be operated by the same.
- Incentivizing state government agencies as well as central government organizations to develop ARHC on their private land and it would be operated by the same.
4. MUDRA-Shishu loans:
This will be launched to benefit the smallest of small credit takers from the bank. Under MUDRA-Shishu loan, one can take loan of only upto Rs 50,000. RBI has already granted a laon moratorium of 3 months to this loan scheme.
- After their return from moratorium period, GoI will provide interest subvention support of 2% to prompt payess for a period of 12 months.
- This will provide relief of Rs 1500 crore to MUDRA-Shishu loanees.
5. Street Vendors:
Considering the adverse impact on the livelihoods of the street vendors due to COVID-19, GoI will launch a special scheme within a month to facilitate easy access to credit to street vendors that would be about Rs 5000 crores and will support around 50 lakh street vendors.
- Initial working capital of upto Rs 10,000 will be provided to the street vendors.
- Those vendors who would be accepting digital payments would be incentivized through monetary rewards.
- Enhanced working capital credit would be made available to the vendors for showing good repayment behaviour.
6. Housing:
- GoI has decided to extended the tenure of Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme for Middle Income Group (Annual Income: Rs 6-18 Lakhs) which was operationalized in May 2017 and was extended to 31st March 2020. It has been extended to 31st March 2021, hence benefitting 2.5 lakh middle income families.
- This extension will lead to investment of Rs 70,000 crores in the housing sector and is expected to stimulate demand for steel, cement, transport and other construction material.
7. For Employement Generation:
- Plans of worth Rs 6000 Crores will be approved shortly to generate employment by pushing the use of CAMPA funds i.e. Compensatory Afforestation Management & Planning Authority, which was set up under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016.
- These funds would be used by state governments for employing tribal people for Afforestation and plantation works, including in urban areas; artificial regeneration & assisted natural regeneration, forest management, soil & moisture conservation works.
Hence it will create job opportunities for tribals/adivasis in urban, semi-urban and rural areas.
8. For Farmers:
- Government of India is providing Rs 30,000 crores Additional Emergency Working Capital Funding for farmers through National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for crop loan requirement of Rural Co-op Banks & Regional Rural Bank (RRBs).
- The additional refinance support of Rs. 30,000 crore would be over and above Rs 90,000 crore to be provided by NABARD through the normal refinance route in 2020.
- This additional amount of Rs. 30,000 crore would be released immediately to meet post harvest (Rabi) & current Kharif requirement in the month of May/June.
- This additional amount is expected to benefit around 3 crores small and marginal farmers.
- 33 State Co-operative banks, 351 District Co-operative banks and 43 RRBs have come forward to avail this on tap based lending.
9. To boost the farming activities, Rs 2 lakh crore Concessional credit boost will be offered to 2.5 crore farmers through Kisan Credit Cards.
- A Special drive would be undertaken to provide concessional credit to PM-KISAN beneficiaries through Kisan Credit Cards. This drive will also include Fishermen and Animal Husbandry farmers.
- This credit flow of about Rs 2 lakh crores will enable these farmers to gain access to institutional credit at concessional interest rate.
