Policy balance
The recent appointment of Sanjay Malhotra as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), replacing Shaktikanta Das, signals a pivotal shift in India’s monetary policy dynamics.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that the government will try to announce a relief package for the COVID-19 affected sectors as soon as possible, reports stated.
The minister made the comments after she reviewed the economic fallout caused due to COVID-19 with the ministers and officials of civil aviation, animal husbandry, tourism and MSME ministries.
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“I had the finance secretary and secretary of economic affairs with me. We are now compiling our notes…I cannot say when we will make an announcement, we will try to do it as soon as possible,” she said.
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The minister further added she will hold a meeting on Saturday to form an action plan to tackle the virus led crisis.
Answering questions based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement on forming a task force, Sitharaman said It was not formed yet but given the sense of urgency, the finance ministry was holding these meetings, which will provide collected inputs to the task force.
“We thought it was better that the work of the task force can be done by the ministry to start with. Of course the task force, when it is constituted, will also get the benefit of these meetings,” she said.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the nation had said the government is setting up a ‘COVID-19 Economic Response Task Force’ to decide on relief package for sectors hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
(With input from agencies)
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