Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday asserted that the government’s objective is to save both lives and livelihoods of the people in the present challenging times when the second wave of Covid-19 is wreaking havoc across India and other countries.
After interacting with business heads and others, Sitharaman said she took inputs from various industry chambers on their concerns about the management of the Covid-19 pandemic, and how to deal with its impact on the economy. She said the Centre would continue to work with state governments to save the people’s lives and livelihoods.
Indian economy had contracted by an unprecedented 23.9 percent in the first quarter of 2020-21 (April-June 2020) due to the outbreak of the pandemic that forced the Centre to clamp a prolonged nationwide lockdown.
“Spoke on the telephone with each of the following business/Chamber leaders. Took their inputs on industry/Association related matters. Informed them that GoI at various levels from @PMOIndia is responding to #Covid management. Working together with states for lives and livelihoods,” she said in a tweet.
Among others, she had interactions with heads of industry chambers including CII president Uday Kotak, FICCI chief Uday Shankar, and Assocham President Vineet Agarwal.
Sitharaman also spoke with business leaders including Tata Steel MD T V Narendran, L&T Chairman A M Naik, TCS MD Rajesh Gopinathan, Maruti Suzuki Chairman R. C. Bhargava, TVS Group Chairman Venu Srinivasan, and Hero Moto Corp MD Pawan Munjal for their feedback on the situation arising out of the surging Covid-19 cases and local containments.
Last week, the FM had clarified that the government would not go for lockdowns in a big way and only resort to local containment to break the Covid-19 chain.
“Even with the second wave, we are very clear that we are not going in for lockdowns in a big way. We don’t want to totally arrest the economy. The local level isolation of patients, or households that have people in quarantines, are the methods through which the crisis will be handled. There shall be no lockdown,” Sitharaman had said.
On Monday, India recorded a single-day highest 2.74 lakh Covid-19 cases in the preceding 24 hours. The seven-day average was 2.19 lakh, as the total infections crossed the 1.50 crore mark. In the last 24 hours, 1,619 people died of the pandemic, taking the total toll to 1.79 lakh so far.
