New Delhi Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a big press conference on Thursday for the second consecutive day and made big announcements under the Rs 20 lakh crore economic package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Finance Minister on Thursday announced an amount of Rs 70,000 crore to give a boost to the housing sector. The Finance Minister announced the extension of the subsidy scheme to provide affordable housing to the middle income group. It has been announced to extend the scheme by one year.
The Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme has been in operation since May 2017 for middle income groups with income between six lakh and 18 lakh. The Finance Minister has now announced to extend the scheme till 31 March 2020. So far 3.3 lakh middle class families have benefited from this scheme. This scheme will benefit 2.5 lakh middle class families during the year 2020-21.
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The Finance Minister said that investment of Rs 70,000 crore in the housing sector will generate many jobs. This will increase demand for transport along with products used in steel, cement and other construction. The Finance Minister said that middle class families will benefit from this scheme, as well as poor laborers will also benefit from getting work.
Apart from this, the Finance Minister has also announced a special credit facility of Rs 5,000 crore for street vendors. In this, street vendors will be able to get up to Rs 10,000 working capital. This will benefit 5 million street vendors. In addition, the Finance Minister has announced an additional emergency working capital fund of 29,500 crore for the farmers through the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). He informed that NABARD would extend additional refinance support of Rs 29,500 crore for crop loan needs of rural cooperative banks and regional rural banks.
