Such cold-shoulder by banks also indicates a credit freeze that is hard to overcome, unless the government comes out with credit guarantee schemes for loans given by banks. Since that is not happening, and there is no indication of that too, banks are not willing to listen to RBI prodding.
'India's sizeable foreign exchange reserves should serve as a buffer.'
Ensuring health insurance for all workers would be major challenge for the industry that is already grappling with cash crunch, and the government should have borne the cost.
Daily wagers are running out of resources, including ration and cash, and the state governments might not be able to sustain their needs for a longer period of time, given the lockdown has already been extended until May 3.
There have been several instances of traders dumping fruits and vegetables outside mandis. Or of farmers dumping produce outside their villages or feeding them to their animals.
The labour ministry has made public a list of 60 officers -- essentially labour commissioners in 20 regions across the country -- along with their e-mail address and contact numbers. They will deal with distress calls from workers who are working under the 'central sphere'.
'What is hindering us is the fear for the disease.' 'For those below the age of 55 years, it's a mild disease.' 'So take care of yourself, your family and your parents.'
While efforts are being mounted on a war footing to arrest its spread, COVID-19 will impact economic activity in India directly through domestic lockdown. The second-round effects, it said, would operate through a severe slowdown in global trade and growth.
The Union home ministry and the labour ministry have asked state governments to coordinate with the chief labour commissioner's (CLC's) office to give a comprehensive data of all the migrant workers by April 11.
A senior official in the central labour commissioner's office said the efforts of the government were to resolve the cases amicably and not to press for legal action against employers. "Everyone is going through tough times. We could initiate legal action if we want but that's not the idea. We want to address the issues amicably," the official said.
The Centre and state governments bonded and then fell apart during the longest lockdown walk.
The RBI on Friday said it will give banks Rs 1 trillion through targeted long-term repo operations (TLTROs), of up to three-year maturity, to deploy in "investment-grade corporate bonds, commercial paper, and non-convertible debentures over and above the outstanding level of their investments in these bonds as of March 27, 2020."
To ease pressure due to the coronavirus lockdown, corporate have asked banks and the government for a six-month liquidity line, so that they can pay off their suppliers and employees.
Around 81 per cent of the workers constitute the unorganised sector - devoid of any social security cover and outside the purview of a complex set of labour laws.
The volume in the anonymous trading platform, NDS-OM, was Rs 7,210 crore - less than half the normal volume, but not as bad as the start of the day indicated.
The idea is to keep the RBI's information technology (IT) infrastructure in top shape to run the payments and settlement system uninterrupted 24x7, and run the full gamut of RBI functions from the secured data centres, as nearly 14,000 RBI staffers, except the senior-most management, work from home.
The Seventh Pay Commission had decided to choose the CPI-IW as the index for adjusting inflation for central government employees.
Minutes of the MPC meeting show Das felt economy needs more monetary stimulus as inflation outlook remains uncertain.
Taking advantage of the RBI's different accounting year, the Centre had started demanding an interim dividend till the time the latter's final balance sheet is prepared (usually in August). To address this anomaly, an expert committee led by former RBI governor Bimal Jalan had recommended aligning the RBI's financial year with that of the government.
Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp has secured regulatory approval for launching its digital payment platform -- WhatApp Pay -- in a phased manner, close to two years after the US-based company's pilot run.
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