Centre, NDB sign $1,000 million loan pact to support India's economic recovery from COVID-19 pandemic

The loan amount will be used to fund expenditures on rural infrastructure and rural employment generation under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), in order to revive rural economy

Moneycontrol News

December 16, 2020 / 06:51 PM IST

A loan agreement of $1,000 million was signed on December 16 between the government and the New Development Bank for funding expenditures on rural infrastructure and rural employment generation under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

The agreement was signed by Baldeo Purushartha, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance and Xian Zhu, Vice President and Chief Operations Officer on behalf of the NDB, the statement said.

Xian Zhu said the programme will support the Government of India’s efforts in mitigating the adverse economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and enable economic recovery in the rural areas through NRM works and employment generation.

The funding under the NDB’s Policy on fast-track emergency response to COVID-19 will help preserve rural income and sustain rural expenditure, resulting in increased demand that aids economic recovery, he added.

The country-wide restriction on movement of people, coupled with additional stringent restrictions imposed by State Governments affected domestic supply and demand, resulting in slowed down economic activity. This resulted in loss of employment and income of workers especially those employed in the informal sector, including rural areas.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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