Amid the deadly second wave of COVID-19 in India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday announced a number of coronavirus relief measures.
The RBI provided a second window to individual, small borrowers having up to Rs 25 crore loans for restructuring loans if not availed earlier.
The RBI Governor said that the moratorium will be available to individuals and small and medium enterprises that have not restructured their loans in 2020 and were classified as standard accounts till March 2021.
“Borrowers i.e. individuals and small businesses and MSMEs having aggregate exposure of upto Rs 25 crore and who have not availed restructuring under any of the earlier restructuring frameworks, and who were classified as Standard as on March 31, 2021 shall be eligible to be considered under Resolution Framework 2.0,” Das said.
In order to strengthen all stake holders in the country’s fight against COVID-19, the RBI Governor announced several measures to equip the common people, banks, industries and others.
7 Key takeaways
1. In order to facilitate access to Emergency Health Service, the RBI announced the provision of immediate liquidity to ramp up healthcare infrastructure and services related to COVID in the country. For this, the RBI has given liquidity window of Rs 50,000 crore till March 31, 2022.
Under this scheme, banks can offer fresh lending to vaccine manufactures; importers/suppliers of vaccines and priority medical devices; hospitals/dispensaries; pathology labs; manufactures and suppliers of oxygen and ventilators; importers of vaccines and COVID related drugs; logistics firms and also patients for treatment.
2. Normal monsoons are expected to contain food price inflation as production is expected to meet demand in near future.
3. RBI Governor also announced Rs 50,000 cr priority lending by banks for hospitals, oxygen suppliers, vaccine importers, coronavirus drugs by March 31, 2022.
4. RBI has opened the second window to individual, small borrowers having loans of up to Rs 25 crore for restructuring loans if they have not availed earlier.
5. The RBI has relaxed the KYC norms. It has asked banks and other regulated financial entities not to impose any punitive restriction till December end, in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
6. The rules for availing overdraft facility for state governments eased up to September 30, 2021.
7. The RBI has allocated Rs 10,000 crore for small finance banks under SLTRO.
RBI Governor’s Full Speech
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