{"id":17454,"date":"2020-08-25T15:53:34","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T15:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/?p=17454"},"modified":"2020-08-25T15:53:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T15:53:34","slug":"government-may-look-at-second-stimulus-once-covid-infections-ebb-expenditure-secy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/?p=17454","title":{"rendered":"Government may look at second stimulus once Covid infections ebb: Expenditure secy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>MUMBAI: The government may look at introducing a second set of fiscal stimulus measures once the <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/COVID-19-infections\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" data-ga=\"within_article-topic_link|topic_COVID-19-infections\" frmappuse=\"1\">COVID-19 infections<\/a> abate and the psychological fears in people&#8217;s minds ebb, a top finance ministry official said on Tuesday. <br \/>The government has also observed that 40 per cent of the cash transfers directly into the beneficiaries&#8217; accounts recently have been saved and not spent, leading to a feeling that there are limitations of the stimuli measures and hence, making timing the most important factor, Union expenditure secretary T V Somanathan said. <br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/coronavirus-live-updates-24-august-2020\/liveblog\/77711319.cms\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" frmappuse=\"1\">Read our coronavirus live blog for all the latest news and updates<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/coronavirus-live-updates-24-august-2020\/liveblog\/77711319.cms\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"strong \" frmappuse=\"1\"\/><br \/>It can be noted that the government&#8217;s first round of fiscal stimulus was announced in late March, and included measures like extra spend of nearly 2 percentage points of GDP. The RBI delivered two deep rate cuts before surprising all with a pause this month, leading some analysts to opine that the government will have to do the heavy lifting now. <br \/>Speaking at an event hosted by Dun and Bradstreet India, Somanathan said normal economic activity is in &#8220;abeyance&#8221; right now and it has nothing to do with what the government has done or not done, but attributed the same to fears among the people. <br \/><span class=\"strong\">More on Covid-19<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Right now, the evidence is that the problem is not susceptible of stimulation by fiscal or government measures. It&#8217;s not as if people are waiting for something to be done by the government and then they are ready to go out and resume normal economic activity,&#8221; he noted. <br \/>Somanathan also said the health situation remains &#8220;very vulnerable&#8221; in many parts of the country and all the personal services activity beyond finance and insurance, like cinema halls, malls and restaurants have been severely impacted. <br \/>&#8220;These are things that I don&#8217;t think a fiscal stimulus or a diktat from the government can make people re-enter these spheres of activity. The revival will really come when the psychology of the pandemic begins to ebb,&#8221; he said, hoping that it will be a reality sooner. <br \/>As and when fears on the health front subside in the minds of people, the government can help the economy &#8220;a little bit with a few measures here and there&#8221;, he said. <\/div>\n<p><a href=\\\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/business\/india-business\/government-may-look-at-second-stimulus-once-covid-infections-ebb-expenditure-secy\/articleshow\/77742728.cms\\\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MUMBAI: The government may look at introducing a second set of fiscal stimulus measures once the COVID-19 infections abate and the psychological fears in people&#8217;s minds ebb, a top finance ministry official said on Tuesday. The government has also observed that 40 per cent of the cash transfers directly into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/1598370816_photo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bengalnewstimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}