Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said that Rs 16,394 crore has been disbursed to 8.19 crore farmers through the PM-Kisan scheme until May 16. She added that direct benefit transfer (DBT) was made possible because it was adopted with missionary zeal earlier.

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Her announcement came while declaring the fifth tranche of the Rs 20 lakh crore relief package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last Tuesday.

She added that 2.20 crore building and construction workers have received Rs 3,953 crore, while 20 crore Jan Dhan account holding women have received Rs 25,000 crore.

Further, the finance minister said that free grains and pulses were given to migrants for two months when the nationwide lockdown got extended. She reserved praise for the Food Corporation of India (FCI), National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed) and state governments for their role helping grains reach migrants.

Health infrastructure

The finance minister said that the government is trying to prepare India for any future pandemics.

"The government will invest in grass root health institutions," said Sitharaman. The government, she said, will strengthen lab networks and surveillance by integrating public health labs in all districts and block level labs and public unit to mange pandemics.

"National institutional platform will also be prepared for one health by ICMR. National Digital Health blueprint will be implemented. All districts will have infection disease centres. Public health labs will be set up at the block level," she added.

MGNREGA budget

The government will allocate Rs 40,000 crore under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to help provide jobs to migrant workers returning home.

This move will help generate nearly 300 crore person days in total, said Sitharaman.

She said the government will provide work to the migrant workers during the monsoon season as well. "There will be a curation of larger number of durable and livelihood assets including water conservation assets. This will boost the rural economy through higher production, added Sitharaman

IBC proceedings

Further, the government will suspend fresh initiation of insolvency proceedings for up to one year and increase the minimum threshold to initiate such proceedings to Rs 1 crore from Rs 1 lakh, said Sitharaman.

In order to enhance the ease of doing business special insolvency resolution framework for MSMEs under Section 240A of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code will be notified soon, she added.

Additionally, debts related to COVID-19 will be exempted from IBC proceedings for up to one year.

Companies Act

The government will move to decriminalise the Companies Act defaults, said Sitharaman. The government has decided to drop seven compoundable offences while five will be dealt with under an alternative framework.

The violations that will be decriminalised include minor technical and procedural defaults like shortcomings in CSR reporting, inadequacies in board report, filing defaults and delay in holding AGM.

"Majority of the compoundable offences sections to be shifted to internal adjudication mechanism (IAM) and powers of RD for compounding enhanced," the government stated in the presentation, adding 58 sections will be dealt with under IAM as compared to 18 earlier.

It added that amendments will de-clog the criminal courts and NCLT.

The government said that private companies which list NCDs on stock exchanges will not to be regarded as listed companies.

"Companies can now directly list their securities in foreign jurisdictions," said Sitharaman.

State borrowings

Sitharaman said that the Narendra Modi government has increased states borrowing capacity from 3 percent to 5 percent for 2020-21 only and this will provide extra resources of Rs 4.28 lakh crore to states.

"States net borrowing ceiling for 2020-21 is Rs 6.41 lakh crore based on 3 percent of GSDP; 75 percent thereof was authorised to them in March 2020 itself and timing is left to the states. States have so far borrowed only 14 percent of the limit authorised, 86 percent of the authorised borrowing remains unutilised," she said.

She added: "In view of the unprecedented situation, Centre has decided to accede to the request of states and increase the borrowing limits of states from 3 percent to 5 percent for 2020-21 only. This will give states extra resources of Rs 4.28 lakh crore."

The first phase of the lockdown began on March 25 and has been extended twice. May 17 is the last day of the scheduled lockdown.

Follow all updates from FM Nirmala Sitharaman's press conference here

First Published:May 17, 2020 11:29 AM IST