India central bank said it would provide an on-tap liquidity window of 500 billion rupees (6.8 billion dollars), in order to provide immediate liquidity to the emergency healthcare infrastructure and services.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das made the announcement on Wednesday while he unveiled a slew of measures as the second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic cause severe strains on the healthcare and medical facilities.
According to Das, under the scheme, banks can provide fresh lending support to a wide range of entities like vaccine manufacturers, importers and suppliers of vaccines.
Others are priority medical devices, hospitals and dispensaries, and other operators in the healthcare sector.
He said logistics firms and patients are also eligible for credits adding that these loans would be classified under the priority sector untill repayment or maturity, whichever is earlier.
The governor said that banks are expected to create a COVID-19 loan book under the scheme by way of an additional incentive.
Such banks would be eligible to park their surplus liquidity up to the size of the COVID-19 loan book with the central bank.
It will be under the reverse repo window at a rate which is 25 basis points lower than the repo rate.
He added that small businesses and financial entities at the grassroots level are bearing the biggest brunt of the second wave of infections.
According to him borrowers with aggregate exposure of up to 250 million rupees who have not availed restructuring facilities earlier and have been classified as ‘standard’ would be eligible for the restructuring under the proposed framework until September 30.
Das said as a one-time measure, banks are allowed to review the working capital sanctioned limits of small and medium-sized businesses, which were restructured earlier.
Those who availed restructuring facility earlier can be given up to two years of moratorium. (dpa/NAN)
