Modi's Rs 20 lakh cr special package for Covid-19: Finance Minister to give details at 4 PM today

A day after PM Narendra Modi announced a special economic package to fight the financial crisis caused by Covid-19 pandemic, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will address a press conference to give details of the relief amount announced by the PM in his address to the nation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday night announced a special economic package, and said the recent decisions by the government, the decisions by the RBI combined with Tuesday's financial package announcement come to about Rs 20 lakh crore - nearly 10 percent of India's GDP.

There is an unprecedented crisis but India will neither get tired nor give up the fight against coronavirus, Modi said, and asserted that we have to protect ourselves and move ahead as well.

Special economic package is for our labourers, farmers, honest tax payers, MSMEs and cottage industry, the prime minister said in a televised address to the nation.

India is standing on five pillars --economy, infrastructure, governing systems, vibrant democracy and supply chain.

The mega Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi includes previously announced measures to save the lockdown-battered economy, and focuses on tax breaks for small businesses as well as incentives for domestic manufacturing.

The combined package works out to roughly 10 per cent of the GDP, making it among the most substantial in the world after the financial packages announced by the United States, which is 13 per cent of its GDP, and by Japan, which is over 21 per cent of its GDP.

The Rs 20 lakh crore package includes Rs 1.7 lakh crore package of free foodgrains to poor and cash to poor women and elderly, announced in March, as well as the Reserve Bank's liquidity measures and interest rate cuts. While the March stimulus was 0.8 per cent of GDP, RBI's cut in interest rates and liquidity boosting measures totalled to 3.2 per cent of the GDP (about Rs 6.5 lakh crore).