Covid 19 - Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reviews readiness of state-run banks to tackle any Omicron-induced disruption

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has convened a meeting with the heads of public sector banks on Friday to review their preparations to deal with any potential disruptions caused by the Omicron variant, as per the PTI report.

According to PTI, the Finance Ministry said in a tweet that during the virtual meeting with CMDs/MDs, the minister reviewed different initiatives taken by PSBs in executing pandemic-related measures started by the government and RBI.

"During the review meeting, FM Smt. @nsitharaman assessed various steps taken by PSBs in implementing pandemic-related measures initiated by GoI and RBI and readiness to tackle possible future disruptions that may occur due to the ongoing variants of the #COVID19 pandemic," it tweeted.

Various local rating agencies have lowered India's growth prediction for the current fiscal year due to the ongoing third wave of the highly contagious Omicron variant of coronavirus.

India Ratings and Research have lowered its expectation to 9.3% from 9.4% before, while Brickwork Ratings has lowered its estimates to 8.5-9% from 10%, as per PTI mentioned.

On Friday, India recorded 1,17,100 new COVID-19 infections in a single day, with 302 deaths. So far, 3,007 cases of Omicron variety of coronavirus have been discovered in 27 states and UTs.

(With the inputs of PTI)