Lockdown extension: India's main policy laboratories deliberate on how to minimise economic impact

On April 11, the government said that senior government officials would be resuming office next week onwards. After a period of working distantly, senior government officials have reported back to work.

The decision came right before harvesting season. Rabi harvesting is set to begin on April 15.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an extension of the initial 21-day lockdown, which was supposed to get over on April 14, till May 3. On April 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had hinted at a staggered lockdown withdrawal after his interaction with chief ministers of states via video conferencing.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has already informed that some more activities with reasonable safeguards should be allowed to operate.

The commerce ministry is learnt to have been trying to figure out ways in which to best safeguard the interests of exporters, whose businesses have taken a hit due to the lockdown. A large section of exporters belong to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

Also Read | Without ancilliary services, MSMEs can't resume operations even after April 20

MSME exporters are expected to be affected the most by the lockdown as the sector accounts for over 45 percent in the country's total outbound shipments.

"We are thinking on those lines, what can be done for exporters. How to ease the burden of pain, whether through incentives or schemes. We are having discussions," said a senior government official.

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The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has projected that global trade in goods is set to decline steeply between 13 percent and 32 percent in 2020 as countries across the world are battling with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The finance ministry's Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs in order to mitigate the situation due to Covid-19 outbreak has formulated means to expedite custom clearance process.

In keeping with social distancing norms, the department is working to make processes more automated and paperless. These include facility to clear goods on the basis of undertaking and acceptance of electronic country of origin certificate.

Another government official said that there is a lot of debate on the need of another financial package to help tide over the situation. Deliberations on that are an ongoing process and efforts would be directed to minimise as much as possible, a full blown economic fallout of the crisis.

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