Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, secretaries and staff at the ministry and senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) were in hectic parleys all through last week to formulate the second fiscal stimulus to mitigate the impact of covid-19 and ward off prospects of any recession, two persons familiar with the development told Mint. “The finance ministry and PMO officials met several times in the week gone by to take a holistic view of the economy, given the upheaval coronavirus has caused and the consequent setback," one of the two sources said.
The country is currently under a 21-day national lockdown that ends on 14 April. All indications points out to a gradual lifting of the lockdown thereafter, though there has been no