A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced ₹20 lakh crore special package to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic followed by announcement of details by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the government had lost focus of the actual problem while making rhetorical announcements.
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“This is supposed to be the first tranche of special package and the focus should have been how to strengthen the fight against this pandemic and provide relief to crores of people who are suffering because of the national lockdown. Both were not addressed,” Mr. Yechury told The Hindu.
He said issues like lowest rate of testing in the world, paucity of personal protection kits and lack of ventilators should have been dealt with.
Migrant workers, question of hunger, job loss and support to the States were not touched. “We would have expected that the first tranche of the stimulus should have been people-oriented.”
The concept of “self-reliance” that PM Modi spoke about in his address is nothing new and has been around since the days of the freedom movement, he said. “It is in fact one of the foundational pillars of our Constitution. Economic self-reliance cannot be achieved without people being self-reliant and that is one focus that is completely missing in this government’s approach,” Mr. Yechury said.
