NEW DELHI: Prominent academics, civil society activists, and policy analysts have written to the Central and state governments appealing for a minimal set of emergency measures to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. Welcoming the measures announced by the government, they said that even as the package is wide-ranging in scope but it falls short of what is needed to support the poor and to prevent a deepening of the ongoing economic slowdown.
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Since several states have already announced measures, it is critical that the Centre and states work together for smooth operationalisation of relief measures, they said. The appeal focussed on the vulnerable (particularly the unorganised sector, consisting of over 90 per cent of our workforce).
From their perspective, the finance minister’s relief measures are highly inadequate for even the coming three weeks with some sense of confidence. The FM’s announcement of Rs 1.7 lakh crore, is less than half of Rs 3.75 lakh crores required to fulfil the minimal “emergency measures” suggested in the appeal endorsed by 635 signatories.
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The calculation of Rs 3.75 lakh crores only referred to an emergency cash relief of Rs 7,000 per household. The appeal emphasised that access to any rights and entitlements should not depend on Aadhaar-based biometric systems in these times.
The relief measures also fall short of the measures with relation to the programmes on pensions, rations and programmes for farmers and workers, it said.