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It took five tranches in as many announcements from the union finance minister Niramala Sitharaman to unveil its plans to tackle the challenge from two fronts- contain COVID-19 and prevent an economic collapse. Sitharaman announced five consecutive tranches beginning on May 14 and the last being on May 17. The first tranche was an economic relief plan whose primary focus was to alleviate the sweeping distress in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sector. The second tranche was an economic stimulus package as part of ‘Self-reliant India Mission’ to cushion the impact of Covid-19. The third tranche included 11 measures for the agriculture sector although most of these measures are either in place already or the government has been discussing these for several years. The fourth tranche included measures that were either a new push to old reforms proposals or an aggregation of earlier decisions. The fifth and last tranche was the announcement of “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-reliant India campaign).” These tranches were attempts at giving a big push by the Modi government to revive the ailing economy totalling Rs.20 lakh crore. the prime minister had said it will be around 10 per cent of the GDP. He asserted it will address problems of a wide range of sectors as well as difficulties of migrant workers. The feel good was spoiled by the opposition Congress after its leader and former union minister Anand Sharma accused the government of misleading people with its “trickery, fakery, quackery”. Sharma alleged that the economic measures announced by the Centre amounted to only 1.6 per cent of India’s GDP, i.e. worth Rs 3.22 lakh crore instead of Rs 20 lakh crore as claimed by the prime minister. He also accused the government of being opportunistic by pushing reforms and bypassing stakeholder consultation, legislation and discussion in Parliament on the package. He said the Congress has analysed the contents of the five tranches and in its considered opinion except for Rs.1.86 lakh crore of additional expenditure, the rest of the announcements are included already in budget expenditure, front loading of some budgeted expenditure, regulatory measures, a number of liquidity measures, medium to long term plans or schemes and proposed reforms. West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra accused the Centre of misleading people regarding the Rs 20 lakh crore special economic package. Mitra said the actual dole is about two per cent or just Rs 4.2 lakh crore of the country’s GDP. Former finance minister P Chidambaram said the stimulus package has left several sections like the poor, migrants, farmers, labourers, workers, small shopkeepers and middle class high and dry. He also said Sitharaman’s announcement of the launch of a National Animal Disease Control Programme for Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Brucellosis’ with a total outlay of Rs 13,343 crore was already in the union budget. So also the announcement for an Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund worth Rs 15,000 crore to encourage the establishment of processing plants for export of niche products . Against the backdrop of stinging opposition charges, the tranches will have to show how much will it help to mitigate the condition of the poor and disadvantaged who have suffered the most under the impact of COVID-19 and how does it stack up in terms of being a booster shot to revive an economy, left in rack and ruin, by the virus?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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