India's post-Covid Budget transparent, futuristic: Anurag Thakur (IANS Exclusive Interview)

New Delhi, Feb 6 India's first Budget after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic is prudent, transparent and futuristic and is aimed at making the country self-reliant, Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur, told .

Following are the excerpts from the post-Budget exclusive conversation had with Thakur.

Q1. What were your first thoughts regarding the economic impact that will occur due to the Covid-19 lockdown? What was your first reaction?

Ans. Today, you can see that India has emerged stronger from this pandemic. We know what happened in those countries which did not impose the lockdown or those that did but were not able to save as many lives.

India on the other hand emerged as one of the countries with the lowest mortality rates as we implemented a systematic lockdown. This was our main goal to save as many lives as possible.

Besides, we have grown our capacity. Earlier, we had negligible manufacturing of PPE kits, today we are a major exporter. We are also exporting vaccines which have been made in India to around 100 countries.

Our approach has been to save lives and livelihood, and the results of the same can be seen.

We had taken steps to support the MSME sector and the economy by the way of additional funding, there was also the loan moratorium as well as other schemes and steps which were taken such as partial credit guarantee scheme, additional working capital loans that were given to protect businesses and jobs.

Q2. Is the worst behind us in terms of economic shock that was unleashed by this pandemic?

Ans. If you look at the projections, the International Monetary Fund

( With inputs from IANS )