SME Times News Bureau | 24 Apr, 2020
Industry body CII has urged the Centre for urgent fiscal interventions
to mitigate the economic costs of the lockdown, as the country's GDP is likely
to range between (-) 0.9 per cent to 1.5 per cent in FY21.
"Given the extent of the damage to the economy from the disruption to
business, the GDP growth in FY21 will likely be the lowest in many decades,"
highlighted CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee.
At present, the lockdown which has been deemed necessary to curb the spread of
Covid-19, has dealt a heavy blow to commerce, leading to a temporary closure of
shopping malls, grounding of aircraft, shutting down of factories and deserted
market places.
At the expiry of the second phase of lockdown on May 3, the control period
would have lasted for 40 days.
"Given the situation, government intervention becomes critical not only to
sustain the economy but also to prevent any humanitarian crisis," Banerjee
said.
The industry body, in a paper titled 'A plan for economic recovery', has called
on the Centre for urgent fiscal interventions which should include cash
transfers amounting to Rs 2 lakh crore to "JAM account holders ", in
addition to the Rs 1.7 lakh stimulus already announced.
"CII has also suggested additional working capital limits to be provided
by banks, equivalent to April-June wage bill of the borrowers, backed by a
Government guarantee, at 4-5% interest."
"In addition, the CII paper has suggested the creation of a fund or SPV
with a corpus of Rs 1.5 lakh crore which will subscribe to NCDs/Bonds of
corporates rated A and above. The fund can be seeded by the Government
contributing a corpus of Rs 10,000-20,000 crore, with further investments from
banks and financial institutions such as LIC, PFC, EPF, NIIF, IIFCL et al. This
will limit Government exposure while providing adequate liquidity to
industry."
In terms of the MSMEs, the CII suggested a credit protection scheme whereby
75-80 per cent of the loan should be guaranteed by RBI.
"Without an increase in government spending in the near-term to drive an
economic recovery, government revenue will dwindle, and high deficits will
continue to be a problem in future," Banerjee said.