Free Foodgrains For Millions Of Migrant Workers

India will provide free foodgrains to millions of migrant workers hardest hit by a weeks-long lockdown as well as offer employment under a rural jobs program, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday.

The government will spend Rs 35 billion ($463.06 million) on food for nearly 80 million migrant workers over the next two months, Sitharaman told a news conference.

The allocation is part of a Rs 20 trillion ($266 billion) fiscal and monetary package to prop up the ailing economy. Millions of workers have fled large towns and cities after they lost their jobs during the lockdown, which is aimed at curbing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“The government is concerned about migrant workers,” Sitharaman said, and had given funds to states to provide shelter, foodgrain and transport for migrants.

Since April, the government has spent Rs 100 billion to offer work to near 23 million unemployed people in rural areas under the ongoing rural job guarantee program, she said.

The government also plans to extend a bank loan interest subsidy program for affordable housing to rented housing for migrant workers, she said.

On Wednesday, it announced new credit lines by offering bank guarantees on loans of over $60 billion to small businesses, shadow banks and power companies.

In an address to the nation on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the package was equivalent to 10% of India’s gross domestic product, and was meant to support workers and businesses reeling from the impact of the prolonged shutdown.

Under lockdown since late March, India has reported more than 78,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among its 1.3 billion population, with over 2,500 deaths from the lung disease.

Economists said new measures would have a limited impact on the government’s fiscal spending as large parts of funding for migrant workers, farmers and small businesses was through state-run banks and financial institutions.

Nevertheless, Sonal Varma, an economist at Nomura, estimated that the federal fiscal deficit is expected to touch 7% of GDP in 2020/21, double an earlier estimate of 3.5%, mainly due to a sharp fall in revenue collection.

In April, the unemployment rate rose to 23.5% from 8.7% the previous month, data released by the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a Mumbai-based think tank, showed.