Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman today announced a slew of measures to tackle the negative impact of the shutdown of the Indian economy to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease.
The idea behind these measures is to put money in the hands of the poorest Indians and at the same time ensure that they don’t go hungry.
The government has said that these measures will involve a total outlay of ₹1,70,000 crore. The question though is – are these measures enough – or did Sitharaman end up bringing a knife to a fight where she actually needed a bazooka?
Let’s look at the issue pointwise: 1) The finance minister announced that the government will deposit ₹500 each over the next three months into Jan Dhan accounts of women.