Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday announced an economic package titled “Atmanirbhar Bharat”, laying the roadmap for a self-reliant model for India’s growth and development in the post-COVID era. Here are the measures announced by the Finance Minister aimed at all sections – farmers, labourers, middle class, small and medium enterprises and industries.
- 3 lakh collateral free automatic loans to enable more than 45 lakh MSME units to resume business and prevent job loss
- ₹20,000 crore Subordinate Debt schemes for stressed NPAs for MSMEs
- ₹50,000 crore equity infusion through MSME Fund of Funds with corpus ₹10,000 crore which will be operated by a Mother Fund and few Daughter Funds thus enabling MSMEs to expand in size and capacity
- New definition for MSMEs – criteria has been shifted from a single index “investment in plant and machinery or equipment” to “investment and annual turnover”; Micro enterprises (investment less than ₹1 crore and turnover less than ₹5 cr), Medium enterprises (investment less than ₹10 crore and turnover less than ₹50 crore), Medium enterprises (investment less than ₹20 crore and turnover less than ₹100 crore), these new definitions apply for both manufacturing and service sector enterprises
- Global tenders to be disallowed in government procurement tenders upto ₹200 crores
- e-Market linkages to replace trade fairs and exhibitions
- Fintech to be leveraged for transaction based lending using data generated by e-market place
- of India to pay Employee Provident Fund for another 3 months, 72 lakh employees to benefit, move to increase take home pay and increase spending and demand
- Statutory EPF contribution reduced from 12% to 10% for 3 months, CPSEs to maintain EPF at 12%
- ₹30000 crore liquidity support for NBFCs/HFIs/MFIs, Partial credit guarantee scheme announced which will further result in liquidity of ₹45000 crores
- Power Finance Corporation and Rural Electrification Corporation to infuse 90000 crore liquidity for DISCOMs
- Relief to contractors – central agencies (like Railways, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Central Public Works Dept) to extend deadline by 6 months without cost to contractor
- Real estate – COVID19 to be treated as ‘force majeure’ (unforeseeable circumstance) under RERA, registration and completion date to be extended by 6 months for projects expiring on or after March 25, fresh Project Registration Certificates to be issued
- TDS and TCS rate reduced – will infuse ₹50000 crore
- Pending refunds to charitable trusts, non-corporate business, professions to be issued immediately
- Date of filing income tax returns and tax audit deferred to 30th November, 2020 and 31st October, 2020 respectively
- Vivad se Vishwas scheme (scheme to settle tax disputes to reduce litigation) deadline extended to 31st December