Our Bureau
Swaminathan Gurumurthy, Director, Central Board, Reserve Bank of India, said the ₹20-lakh crore stimulus package announced by the government is only an “interim announcement” and the final package may come once the Covid-19 pandemic is brought under control. He hoped the Covid situation could be brought under control by August or September this year.
Since the stimuli, so far announced is not final, issues such as the monetisation of fiscal deficit and other such questions can only be taken when the Covid phase ends.
“Our stimuli is not final because the story of Covid has not ended….it is only thereafter (when Covid is managed) that we will be able to assess the total damage, and only then we can say what is the kind of relief that is needed and how far it will go,” said Gurumurthy at a special e-session organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
Economic revival
According to him, the revival in growth would be fast once this pandemic is brought under control, and there will be a greater demand growth in India with exports growing.
While full economic activity in the sense that people are expecting might take about a year or more to recover, however, there would be some businesses, particularly in the healthcare and wellness industry, that might become more and more important going forward.
“I see a huge shift to India….growth in India will be faster not just because of local factors, which is likely to be slow, but due to global factors, and this would start reflecting slowly from the fourth quarter of this fiscal and witness a disproportionate increase from the first quarter of next fiscal,” he pointed out.
Banks might not be able to drive the growth, but will play an important role in arresting the fall. The growth will have to come from internal and external demand.
The NPA norms that are currently in place in India are not attuned to the Indian requirements and is a copy of western models, he said, and added that as a part of Atmanirbhar Bharat, we should try and come up with an ideal economic model best suited for India.
“We will have to work out models at various levels and only when we decouple ourselves from western slavery we can do that,” he said.
A letter from the Editor
Dear Readers,
The coronavirus crisis has changed the world completely in the last few months. All of us have been locked into our homes, economic activity has come to a near standstill. Everyone has been impacted.
Including your favourite business and financial newspaper. Our printing and distribution chains have been severely disrupted across the country, leaving readers without access to newspapers. Newspaper delivery agents have also been unable to service their customers because of multiple restrictions.
In these difficult times, we, at BusinessLine have been working continuously every day so that you are informed about all the developments – whether on the pandemic, on policy responses, or the impact on the world of business and finance. Our team has been working round the clock to keep track of developments so that you – the reader – gets accurate information and actionable insights so that you can protect your jobs, businesses, finances and investments.
We are trying our best to ensure the newspaper reaches your hands every day. We have also ensured that even if your paper is not delivered, you can access BusinessLine in the e-paper format – just as it appears in print. Our website and apps too, are updated every minute, so that you can access the information you want anywhere, anytime.
But all this comes at a heavy cost. As you are aware, the lockdowns have wiped out almost all our entire revenue stream. Sustaining our quality journalism has become extremely challenging. That we have managed so far is thanks to your support. I thank all our subscribers – print and digital – for your support.
I appeal to all or readers to help us navigate these challenging times and help sustain one of the truly independent and credible voices in the world of Indian journalism. Doing so is easy. You can help us enormously simply by subscribing to our digital or e-paper editions. We offer several affordable subscription plans for our website, which includes Portfolio, our investment advisory section that offers rich investment advice from our highly qualified, in-house Research Bureau, the only such team in the Indian newspaper industry.
A little help from you can make a huge difference to the cause of quality journalism!
Support Quality Journalism