Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said a new-look Lockdown 4.0 beyond May 17 was in the offing, while announcing an economic stimulus package for ₹20-lakh-crore (estimated at 10% of the GDP), with a clearly defined leap towards economic reforms that will, in his words, lead to Atmanirbhar Bharat, or a self-reliant, resilient India.
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This amount includes packages already announced at the beginning of the lockdown incorporating a slew of measures from the RBI and the payouts under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana.
‘Relook at systems’
Addressing the nation on television, Mr. Modi said the whole world was reeling from the crisis engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as was India. In this crisis, however, India had had an opportunity to look at systems and institutions that were in existence before the crisis hit and how they crumbled. “We have been hearing for many years that the 21st century will be India’s century, and this crisis is, I believe one that carries a message, that we have to move forward not just to combat the crisis but to prevail,” the Prime Minister said. “That can happen when we are self-reliant.”
Ramped-up capacity
He gave the example of India’s ramped-up capacity in producing Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) kits and N-95 masks required by medical personnel and frontline health workers to illustrate his point that India could achieve this.
“When the first case hit us,