India: €20 billion aid programme launched for the poor

With the entire country under lockdown since midnight on Tuesday, following a spike in coronavirus cases, India’s government announced on Thursday a €20.6 billion aid programme to support hundreds of millions of people in poverty across the country. The plan comprises support in the form of food as well as direct cash transfers. Over three months some 800 million people, or 60% of India’s population, will receive 5 kilos of rice per month, while each household will receive an additional kilo of pulses. The cash transfers will target women and elderly people in particular, who will receive between 12 and 18 euros for three months, a sum that economists believe to be insufficient. “Nobody will go hungry,” India’s finance minister underlined several times when the measures were announced on Thursday. The survival of many Indian people is at stake, with swathes of the population unable work and therefore deprived of resources as a result of the lockdown. The coronavirus outbreak, which has infected more than 700 people in India, is already ravaging the economy of a country where more than 80% of the workforce depends on the informal sector. The country’s finance minister hinted that further economic measures would be unveiled to tackle the Covid-19 crisis.