Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Sunday that vaccination was the only medication that could help the economy since it allowed people to do regular business and farmers to continue cultivating.
Sitharaman made the remarks while speaking at the Tamilnad Mercantile Bank’s centennial celebrations on Sunday. ‘Vaccination programme has been going on smoothly in the country and so far 73 crore people have already received jabs free of charge. Today, through vaccination, people were able to conduct business, traders were able to procure products to run businesses or farmers were able to do farming. So, vaccination is the only medicine (to combat the virus, to boost the economy),’ she said.
‘We are not praying for a third wave (of the Covid-19 virus). If this happens, one must consider the availability of hospitals, and even if there is a hospital, does it have an ICU, and if it does, does it have oxygen support? For all of these reasons, the Ministry established a programme that would allow hospitals to expand when the country was hit hard by the second wave (of Covid-19),’ she explained.
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Hospitals in remote regions, Sitharaman added, were able to expand by taking advantage of the Ministry’s programmes, notably the ‘viability gap financing’ plan.
She also stated that banks, both public and private, should embrace digitalisation in order to ensure that government programmes reach the needy.
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