Top highlights from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's second tranche of COVID-19 stimulus

• The first tranche of India's economic stimulus was worth ₹5.9 lakh crore.
• The second tranche focusses on migrant workers, small traders, small farmers, etc.
• There are nine announcements in all in the second tranche of stimulus.

The first tranche of India's economic stimulus was worth ₹5.9 lakh crore. There are nine announcements in all in the second tranche of stimulus focussed on migrant workers, small traders, small farmers, etc. There may be more relief measures for the same segments in the upcoming days.

SEE ALSO: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reveals the details of Modi's ₹20 lakh crore stimulus package

The target audience for the second tranche of stimulus and the number of steps announced today.

The top highlights from the details of the stimulus package unveiled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on May 14:

1. Free food grain supply to migrants for 2 months. ₹3,500 crore outlay for this scheme. Migrants who don’t have either the National Food Security Act card or any state card will get 5 kilograms of grains per person and 1 kilogram of chana per family per month for two months.
2. One nation, One ration card: National portability of ration cards will be available. Any person can avail the public distribution system in any state across India. This will benefit 670 million people (83% of population) and the others will be covered by March 2021. About 8 crore migrants will benefit from this and ₹3500 crore will be spent on this intervention.
   
   
3. Govt will launch a scheme an affordable rental housing for migrant workers and urban poor under public-private partnership mode. Both state governments and companies can also be incentivised to create similar housing for their workers under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
4. Interest subvention of 2% for a period of 12 months. It will be available for those who pay Shishu loans (of ₹50,000 or lower) under the Mudra scheme. Outlay for the interest relief: ₹1,500 crore. Total loans given by the government in this category so far ₹1.62 lakh crore to over 30 million people.
5. Street vendors will be given an initial working capital of up to ₹10,000. The scheme will be launched within a month. The scheme will support nearly 5 million street vendors. Special credit facility of ₹5,000 crore.
6. For those who have annual income of ₹6 lakh to ₹18 lakh, an existing credit-linked subsidy scheme will be extended till March 2021. This will help boost demand for affordable housing. 250,000 middle income families expected to benefit from this scheme.
7. To use funds ₹6,000 crore from the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund to boost employment of tribals in forestry work.
8. ₹30,000 crore outlay for small and marginal farmers, in addition to the ₹90,000 crore which will be provided by NABARD through the normal refinance route. Will benefit around 3 crore farmers who need money either in the post rabi crop period or for sowing kharif crop.

Steps that are still in the works:

• Minimum wages - presently only applicable to 30% workers.
• Appointment letters for all and annual health checkup for all.
• Extension of ESIC coverage pan-India.
• Portability of welfare benefits for migrant workers.
• Mandatory ESIC coverage in hazardous industries even if they have less than 10 employees.
• Re-skilling fund introduced for retrenched employees.
• All occupations opened for women.
• Provision of gratuity on completion of one year of service as against 5 years.

These are the stimulus measures announced by the Modi government so far (before May 13).


These are the steps taken so far between March 2020 and now ⁠—



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