China-backed bank AIIB approved $750M USD to India on June 16, 2020. The core intention of the loan from AIIB is to fight the financial crisis in India amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The program was named as India COVID-19 active response and expenditure support. Government officials have clearly said that the fund from AIIB will be used for financial development and business growth in India.
Providing social assistance for compensating the economic loss to vulnerable groups is also an intention of the program. This program also fights with the social, health, and economic impacts on the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The program also described that it will help the health care systems in the country to serve more, cares about every worker who got affected by the pandemic.
The expected results from the program are as mentioned below:
- By June 2021, at least 50 million poor women receive the monetary benefit of INR 500 for 3 months in their bank account.
- By June 2021, at least 20 million poor citizens, widows, and people with disabilities who are beneficiaries under the national social assistance program are provided with the grant support of INR 1000.
- By June 2021, at least 60 million farmers receive advance disbursement of INR 2000 under PM Kisan Yojana.
- By June 2021, at least 60 million poor women are provided with free cooking gas cylinders under LPG connections to below the poverty line household scheme.
- By June 2021, among the daily wage workers, rural women represent at least 50% of beneficiaries of higher wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme.
- By 2021, at least INR 30 billion will be released to the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) as a payment of employer’s share of 3 months’ provident fund contribution of EPFO subscribers.
The contact points of the program are Hari Bhaskar, Senior Investment Operations, AIIB. And Dr. Prasann V Salian, Deputy Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.
Talking about the reality of taking a $750M USD loan to give Rs. 500 to poor women or Rs. 2000 farmers is not going to help anyone. Taking these heavy loans, that too from China to give INR 1000 to poor citizens will cost the public more. If, this how we fight with the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, it is not going to help. This story says that our media once again made a flop show.
We have seen recently that every NEWS channel was doing programs against China and those programs were again sponsored by Chinese companies. And now we got the same to see with the government as one side, they are banning the apps and on the other side taking loans from China-backed banks.