Vikram Kirloskar, President of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) talking about what the India Inc made of the coronavirus outbreak and its economic impact said, “The economic impact is going to be quite severe. Yesterday we had a meeting with all our regional chairman and some senior members, we have made a committee on the whole virus situation."

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"The first thing they are doing is trying to take care of the health of our employees, our communities and all our stakeholders and how to be safe. The simplest thing to say on that is be sensible, and be responsible. These are the two main issues. I think we should follow what Mr. Modi and the central medical officers are talking about, they are talking a lot of sense, and they have protected us very well,” he said.

He further added, “Regarding industry as such – because supply chains have been disrupted for some time because ever since India has opened up, India it has been a part of the global supply chain and global delivery chain, both for exports as well as imports and for local production. Many small things are brought from all over the world, they can be quite insignificant in value but they make a big part of the product itself. So it is certainly going to affect the supply chain as well as the market.," he further said, adding that the supply chain is the physical problem and market is of course the issue of money and sentiment and where the people are willing to take a risk.”

“Regarding the financial, services and manufacturing some of the things we are suggesting are like can the repayment dates on loans or moratoriums be extended – this is one. Second is can the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) look at what the other banks around the world are doing - reducing interest rates as well as increasing cash reserve ratio (CRRs) to let more money, liquidity come into the system. Encourage banks with liquidity to support the small and medium scale sector," he said, adding that they were requesting industry to please pay small and medium scale as fast as possible. Also requesting government to pay because there is still a lot of payment due from them which ends up being with small and medium scale for infrastructure for projects.

“I believe the PM is going to address the nation in the evening at 8:00 clock, I hope we get something out of there. He will tell us to be responsible and sensible that is the primary message I am expecting from the PM,” said Kirloskar.

"I think in manufacturing, in lot of industries, and in my company as well we started doing a risk management plan about 15 days ago on how to take care of the health of people and watch our supply chains, so that nothing is coming from China. I think lot of industries are doing that. They are certainly trying their best to take care of the employees and with minimum number of people in factories trying to keep production going," he said.

"The issue is about the small and medium scale who are our suppliers as well, we have to take care of them and not only health wise. So we are teaching them how to take care of themselves because we also have to make sure they survive, said Kirloskar.