Gujarat: ‘Rs 9,500 cr Covid relief announced for state’

The state government too has announced relief measures through over 16 different programmes, officials said. This includes Rs 688 crore that will be spent on giving Rs 1,000 to 68.80 lakh families of labourers in the state and the Rs 45 crore that has been spent on migrants housed in shelters.




During the two months of Covid-19 lockdown, relief worth Rs 9,500 crore has been extended to Gujarat by both the central and state governments, officials said.

“Under various schemes announced by the Gujarat government, Rs 3,700 crore of relief is being provided across the state. The last welfare scheme to be declared was the Aatmanirbhar Gujarat Sahay Yojana where the state government has absorbed a significant portion of the interest on small loans up to Rs 1 lakh,” Milind Torwane, Secretary (economic affairs), Finance Department told The Indian Express.

“In addition to this, the Centre has pledged an assistance of Rs 5800 crore, most of which is being directly given to beneficiaries in the state,” Torwane added. Most of the relief that is coming to the state from the Centre is under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana package. This amount is in addition to the money which is being directly spent for tackling Covid-19 by the Health and Home departments in the state.

Under the PMGKY, Rs 956.28 crore have already been disbursed to 47.81 lakh farmers as the first installments of Rs 2,000 for the month of April. The Centre will be spending Rs 1,182 crore for supplying 5 kilogram of foodgrains (per person) and one kilogram of pulses (per family) for three months till June. This is for 68 lakh ration card holders in the state and the rations for the month of April and May has already been disbursed to the beneficiaries.

Under the Jan Dhan scheme, a total of Rs 1,100 crore will be spent over three months where 74 lakh women beneficiaries in Gujarat will be getting Rs 500 in their bank accounts every month.

An additional Rs 78.44 crore will be spent as ex-gratia of Rs 1000 in two installments to 5.8 lakh elderly, 10,700 divyangs and 97,437 widow beneficiaries. Apart from this, 28 lakh women beneficiaries will get free LPG cylinders for three months and 2.27 lakh self-help groups in the state will get access to collateral free loans which has been doubled to Rs 20 lakh. The Centre will be bearing the EPF contribution of industrial units that have less than 100 workers and 90 per cent of them earn less than Rs 15,000 per month.

The state government too has announced relief measures through over 16 different programmes, officials said. This includes Rs 688 crore that will be spent on giving Rs 1,000 to 68.80 lakh families of labourers in the state and the Rs 45 crore that has been spent on migrants housed in shelters. The state government will be spending an additional Rs 425 crore in providing free foodgrains to 65.4 lakh ration card holders under the National Food Security Act, 61 lakh APL-1 ration card holders and 4.26 lakh families who do not have ration cards.

The state government power discoms will be incurring additional expenditure of Rs 450 crore after the government extended the payment of electricity bills till May-end and decided not to collect fixed charges from commercial and residential consumers.

Apart from this the state will also be giving Rs 62.60 crore in cash to the parents of students under the midday meal scheme and another Rs 35 crore for those children attending anganwadis in the state. The state government is also undertaking 14,700 water conservation works to the tune of Rs 414 crore which will help create jobs in rural areas, including those through MGNREGA till June 10.

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