Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, towards a Self Reliant Nation : Fifth Tranche of announcement

Highlights of Phase 5 Stimulus Package announced by Finance minister, Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman on 17 May 2020.

These decisions focus on MNREGA, Healthcare & education, Business during Covid, Decriminalization of Companies Act, Ease of doing business, PSUs and policies and State govt and resources

Decisions made under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan:

  • MGNREGA

Job security for farmers ensured during monsoon by allocating additional Rs. 40000 Crores. Budget estimate was Rs. 61000 Crores.

  • Health and Education

All districts will have infectious disease hospitals while at the block-level, public health labs will be set up.

PM eVidya programme to be launched immediately. Each Classroom from 1 to 12 will have one TV channel. Special e-content for visually & hearing impaired. Top 100 universities will be permitted to start online courses by May 30, 2020.

  • Public Sector Enterprise Policy for a New, Self-reliant India

Need for a new coherent policy—where all sectors are open to the private sector while public sector enterprises (PSEs) will play an important role in defined areas. Accordingly government will announce a new policy whereby

List of strategic sectors requiring presence of PSEs in public interest will be notified
• In strategic sectors, at least one enterprise will remain in the public sector but private sector will also be allowed
• In other sectors, PSEs will be privatised (timing to be based on feasibility etc.
• To minimize wasteful administrative costs, number of enterprises in strategic sectors will ordinarily be only one to four; others will be privatized/ merged/ brought under holding companies

  • Additional Resources to State

Centre has decided to increase borrowing limit of states from 3% to 5%. This will give extra resources of Rs 4.28 lakh crore to states. This despite, states having borrowed only 14% of the limit authorised to them. 86% remains unutilised. The additional borrowing limit has been linked with initiating reforms.

  • IBC Reforms

Covid19-related debt to be excluded from definition of default under the IBC. No fresh insolvency for next one year.For MSMEs a special insolvency farms work will be notified under section 240-A of IBC .

  • Ease Of Doing Business (EoDB)

Improvement in rankings in ‘starting a business’ and
‘insolvency resolution’ have contributed to the overall
improvement in India’s ranking on EoDB.

a)Direct listing of securities by Indian public companies in
permissible foreign jurisdictions.
b) Private companies which list NCDs on stock exchanges not
to be regarded as listed companies including the provisions of Part IXA (Producer Companies)
of Companies Act, 1956 in Companies Act, 2013.
c)Power to create additional/ specialized benchesfor NCLAT and also Lower penalties for all defaults for Small Companies, One-
person Companies, Producer Companies & Start Ups.