Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday batted for complete vaccination to bring the economy back on track and for the industry to work normally. The minister also urged more private sector participation in extending the reach of government schemes to rural India.
Inaugurating the centenary celebrations of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB), the finance minister said, “Out of the 130 crore (1.3 blllion) people, we have already given at least one dose of vaccine to around 73 crore (730 million). We have to wear masks even now. Once two doses are over, we believe that it will not be needed. For the economy, industry to work normally, vaccines are needed.”
The country’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage surpassed the cumulative figure of 73,82,07,378 on Sunday, adding 72,86,883 doses in the last 24 hours. The minister added that it was due to the aggressive financial inclusion programme through the Jan Dhan Yojana the government became successful in helping the poor in rural India by transferring Rs 1,500 to their accounts during the first three months of the pandemic. “This would not have been possible had we not launched PMJDY,” she said.
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) was launched on August 28, 2014. During the pandemic, an amount of Rs 500 per month was credited to the accounts of women account holders under PMJDY for three months (April to June 2020) under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana. A total of around Rs 30,945 crore was credited to such accounts during that time. The minister added that schemes like Mudra yojana and Svanidhi too helped rural India. She also urged the private sector banks too to take up government schemes more aggressively.
Sitharaman said it is because of the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECGS) launched by the Centre that MSMEs were able to tide over the crisis and run their businesses. Under ECGS, loans of around Rs 2.73 trillion have been sanctioned out of the enhanced Rs 4.5 trillion limit so far. Of this, banks have so far disbursed around Rs 2.14 trillion.
She said that a lot of energy of the banking sector has gone towards recovery of non-performing assets, and ‘prompt corrective measures’ is what helped the sector to come back to the current level. According to the latest data, NPAs declined from Rs 7,39,541 crore on March 2019 to Rs 6,16,616 crore on March 2021, down 17 per cent in a span of two years.
The minister also asked TMB to take up the digitisation drive further to improve the financial inclusion, citing that it is appreciable that around 74 per cent of its lending is towards the priority sector. TMB has already filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for an Initial Public Offering (IPO). In April this year, the bank’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer K V Rama Moorthy had said that the lender was planning a Rs 1,000 crore IPO this fiscal.