Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made several relief announcements today amid the Corona crisis. These include the announcement of provision of a credit line of Rs 1 lakh for licensed tourist guides.
New Delhi. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held a press conference today regarding the economic situation arising due to the corona virus epidemic. In this, he made many relief announcements. In this episode, he also made many announcements for the tourism sector most troubled by the Korana crisis. He said that provision of financial assistance will be made for the registered tourist guides. 11,000 tourist guides of the country will come under the purview of this scheme. Under the scheme, a credit line of Rs 1 lakh will be provided for tourist guides.
Free visa scheme for foreign tourists will be applicable till March 31, 2022
Apart from this, Finance Minister Sitharaman also made a big announcement for foreign tourists coming to India. He has announced that free tourist visa will be given for 5 lakh foreign tourists. A tourist will get the facility of free visa only once. This scheme will be applicable till 31 March 2022. He has today announced a new credit guarantee scheme for over 11,000 registered tourist guides and stakeholders associated with travel and tours. Under this, personal loans will be made available to licensed tourist guides affected by Kovid-19. No processing charge will be applicable on this loan. No additional collateral will be required for this.
The Ministry of Tourism will conduct the loan scheme for guides
The Ministry of Tourism will operate the loan scheme for Tourist Guides through NCGTC. To give relief to the tourism sector, the free tourist visa scheme announced by the government will stop after the distribution of the first 5 lakh visas. Finance Minister Sitharaman initially said that today we will announce 8 relief measures. Of these, 4 relief measures are new. During the press conference, he also announced a new relief package related to the health sector. He said that we have brought a relief package of Rs 1.1 lakh crore for the Kovid affected sector.
Finance Minister did not announce regarding privatization of two banks
According to the announcement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the budget speech for 2021, NITI Aayog had suggested the names of some banks for privatization to the Core Group of Secretaries on Disinvestment in April 2021 under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary. Among them, the possibility of privatization of Central Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank was being told the most. The names of Indian Overseas Bank and Central Bank of India were also approved by a panel headed by the Cabinet Secretary. Today it was expected that Finance Minister Sitharaman would make an announcement related to this during the press conference, but she did not make any announcement regarding the privatization of banks.
