Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief ministers will soon meet to discuss a plan to manage the country after May 17, when a nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus is scheduled to end after its second extension.
The video meeting—the fifth on the coronavirus outbreak—is set to start at 3 pm and will go on "till proceedings continue", reported NDTV.com quoting unnamed government officials. Chief ministers are likely to push for allowing economic activities to resume slowly, as the centre weighs a graded exit from the 54-day lockdown.
Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba chaired on Sunday a meeting with Chief Secretaries and Health Secretaries of all states and union territories to review the status of managing the disease’s outbreak. The government on Sunday allowed the Indian Railways to resume passenger trains, announcing a major relaxation in the lockdown that has shuttered economic activity in the country.
Analysts at Nomura, the international research and broking house, have lowered their GDP growth forecast for India to a negative 5 per cent / 5 per cent contraction y-o-y (from -0.5 per cent forecast earlier) for 2020, but raised it to 7.9 per cent (from 7.3 per cent forecast earlier) for 2021. Nomura has lowered India's FY21 GDP growth forecast to -5.2% vs -0.4% earlier.
The lockdown has begun to hit corporate earnings even though economic activity was shut for only seven days during the January-March 2020 quarter (Q4FY20). The combined profit before tax of 81 early bird firms that have declared Q4 results is down 37.5 per cent year-on-year against 48 per cent y-o-y growth a year ago. The blow to bottom line was, however, cushioned by a cut in corporation tax rate cut announced in September last year. Combined net profit was down 36.8 per cent y-o-y in Q4 compared to 49.5 per cent y-o-y growth a year ago and 18.3 per cent y-o-y growth reported by the sample during Q3FY20.