CHENNAI: The State government has constituted a 24-member high-level committee, headed by former RBI governor C Rangarajan, to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different sectors of the economy. Finance Secretary S Krishnan will be the coordinator of the committee, which will submit its report to the government within three months.
The panel will assess the impact of the lockdown, additional costs and implication due to social distancing, and precautionary measures to be undertaken. The panel will also come up with measures to help the important sectors of the economy overcome the pandemic, while assessing the impact of the crisis on the State government’s fiscal situation.
The panel will identify fiscal issues, and points to be taken up with the Centre for necessary action. In February, Deputy Chief Minister O Paneerselvam announced that an expert committee would be set up to improve tax to GSDP ratio of the State. Now, taking the pandemic into account, the role of the committee has been redefined. The State government is facing a shortfall of `10,000 crore due to the lockdown.
Of the 24 members, 10 are from the government and 14 are field experts.
The experts are: former chief secretary N Narayanan, Vice chancellor of Madras University P Duraisamy, vice-chancellor of TN Agriculture University N Kumar, Madras School of Economics director K R Shanmugham, MIDS director PG Babu, former chairman of Murugappa Group A Vellayan, Madras Cements MD N Srinivasan, TVS Motors Chairman Venu Srinivasan, Indian Bank MD Padmaja Chunduru, Equitas Bank MD PN Vasudevan, member 14th Finance Commission M Govinda Rao, IIT Madras professor M Suresh Babu, and Unicef coordinator Pinaki Chakraborty.