On 30th May 2019, PM Modi took oath as the Prime Minister of the country for the second time with some surprising names in the Cabinet. For the first time in Indian history, India was getting a woman as the Finance Minister & her name was Nirmala Sitharaman.

The second term of the Modi Government started with the motive to continue the work like they did in their first term. But, nature has planned something else for India & the world. A historical crisis was about to knock on the door of the world. The year 2019 ended up with the fear of a virus originating from China named COVID 19, it was spreading rapidly and many countries were affected by this virus by December 2019.

India was preparing against the virus by 1st case of the COVID reported in India in January 2020. Unfortunately, the whole country was affected by the COVID virus by March-end, so PM Modi announced a lockdown on 25th March 2020. Lockdown was announced with the purpose of securing the life of the citizens. But the major problem for the government was, how the economy will survive if the lockdown continues? Then, the Finance Ministry came up with the Aatmanirbhar Bharat packages to financially support the MSMEs, Corporates, Banks and other sectors. The total Aatmanirbhar Bharat package announced by the Finance Minister was 20 lakh crore.

In the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Package, Modi Government focused on providing free food to the poor with the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY), a Moratorium was announced for those who had loans to pay, and various schemes for announced for MSMEs including Performance linked Incentives (PLI) & Emergency Credit line & Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS). A report claimed that ECLGS saved 13.5 lakh MSMEs & 1.5 Crore jobs from the impact of the pandemic. This futuristic idea of PM Modi & FM Nirmala Sitharaman saved many corporates from the economic crisis.

Both budgets presented in the years 2021 & 2022 were primarily focused on infrastructure development to increase the employment opportunities & healthcare to make health infrastructure better for the citizens. In budget 2022, total capital expenditure by the Government was increased to 7.5 lakh crore, the highest ever allocation to the CAPEX.

One of the finest decisions by the Prime Minister & Finance Minister was the sale of Air India! Due to the poor management of Air India by the UPA Govt, the company was in huge debt & per day maintenance cost of Air India was Rs 20 crores which the Government of India was paying to the company.

For 10-12 years, the Government of India was trying to sell Air India but was unable to move forward as many obstacles were there to stop the procedure. But FM succeeded in selling the company to Tata Sons & that move saved 20 crores per day loss for the Government of India. Now, many companies like this are identified & disinvestment procedure is going on in those companies.

Recently, the GST Collection revenue touched Rs 1.68 lakh crore, the highest ever GST collection after implementation. GST Collection crossed 1.2 lakh crore for the last 7 consecutive months from which the last 4 months have seen GST Collection of more than 1.3 lakh crore. It is a record!

India is the fastest-growing economy in the world in GDP terms, Economy management during the pandemic was praised by the IMF. All these are positive signs that India is moving ahead from the pandemic effect.

 

 

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