NEW DELHI: India’s apex trade body Confederation of Indian Industry has developed and advocated a COVID-19 CODE to its members to help its workers and society at large from the impact of disruptions caused by COVID-19.
“We announced our initiatives at the interactive meeting with Prime Minister Modi earlier today. Our initiative is to help the economically deprived people particularly our commitment to not retrench any worker including blue-collar and contract workers resonated well with PM Modi who appreciated industry’s efforts, “ said Vikram Kirloskar, President, CII in a statement issued on Monday evening.
CII members will dedicate their plant facilities to help scale up manufacture and availability of essential goods and equipment needed to deal with the medical emergency like ventilators sanitizers, essential drugs, medical services, etc., on a no-profit basis and build a cadre of volunteers for public service the CII CODE advocates.
While speaking about the COVID Rehabilitation & Relief Pool Fund, Uday Kotak president-designate of CII said it was important to look at the micro and small industry who would need special hand-holding and help to rehabilitate their business.
“The CII COVID Rehabilitation and Relief Fund (CRR) will be an industry-led initiative to work with the MSME sector,” Kotak said.
Elaborating on some of the major interventions required from RBI, Kotak said that it is important that a rate cut of 50 to 100 basis points is announced immediately. He also called for dollar liquidity swap as India was in a comfortable position as far as its dollar reserves are concerned.
Given the need to help people at the bottom of the pyramid, CII has called for cash into the bank accounts of all Indian citizens whose earnings are below Rs 5 lakhs (those who are exempted from income tax). All Indian citizens should be given cash in their accounts through the direct benefit transfer; While those below 25 years can be given a one-time payment of Rs 5000, senior citizens above 65 can be given Rs 10,000, CII has said.
There is a need to ensure that all migrant workers continue to stay in the cities where they work and so providing for enablers is crucial.
All borrowers should be given a three-month moratorium on all loans and all repayment obligations should be suspended for this period. CII also emphasized that there is an immediate need to facilitate and enable advances for ways and means for industry across sectors and the government could perhaps explore options of a moratorium on interest and principal for the next three months. It may also be important to suspend IBC proceedings while redefining norms for NPAs as several companies will be unable to meet their payment obligations.
Also, the need for close coordination between regulators like RBI, MCA, and SEBI to get effective results and implementation was highlighted.
