Cabinet approves FM Sitharaman's relief measures: Key highlights

New Delhi, June 30: Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the relief measures announced by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday. The FM announced 8 such relief measures.

Together with previously announced Rs 93,869-crore spending on providing free foodgrains to the poor till November and additional Rs 14,775 crore fertiliser subsidy, the stimulus package, which is mostly made up of government guarantee to banks and microfinance institutions for loans they extend to COVID-19-hit sectors, totalled up to Rs 6.29 lakh crore.

The finance minister provided Rs 23,220 crore of additional funding to set up children and paediatric care at hospitals to prepare healthcare infrastructure to deal with any emergency arising due to COVID-19 wave hitting children.

BharatNet implementation strategy

The cabinet approved public private partnership mode for the rollout of BharatNet project for broadband services in villages in 16 states with viability gap funding of Rs 19,041 crore, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

He said the decision to involve private players was taken after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on August 15, 2020 that around 6 lakh villages in the country will be connected with broadband in 1,000 days.

The 16 states are Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.

Till date, 1.56 lakh out of the 2.5 lakh village panchayats have been connected with broadband.

Deadline extension for jobs scheme

The Cabinet approved the extension of the last date of registration under ABRY from June 30, 2021, to March 31, 2022. Consequent upon this extension, it is expected that 71.8 lakh jobs will be generated in the formal sector as against the earlier projection of 58.5 lakh, it added.

As on June 18 this year, benefits amounting to Rs 902 crore have been given to 21.42 lakh beneficiaries through 79,577 establishments under the ABRY, it said.

with PTI inputs