Top ministers of the Narendra Modi government met Monday, beginning a series of discussions to revive the economy as the country opened up further after 54 days of a national lockdown amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The group of ministers, led by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, held a 70-minute meeting and there will be several such meetings in the days to come, sources said. “The leaders will put their heads together on possible solutions to revive the economy. the group will then give suggestions to the PM,” the source said. Besides Singh, the GoM includes Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and MoS (Finance) Anurag Thakur. “The ministers will meet again soon,” the source said. The government has already announced a financial package of Rs 20 lakh crore, aiming at banks to extend credit on the back of government guarantees to several sectors, including small businesses and non-banking finance companies. However, sources said the group of ministers will discuss other possible solutions too for boosting the economy too. PM Modi is learnt to have tasked the informal group of ministers (GoM) to monitor the implementation of the economic revival package announced by him last week, according to sources. Sources said the Centre will now completely focus on economic revival, leaving it for states to handle the Covid situation. The Centre has extended the nationwide lockdown till May 31 but there are more relaxations in non-containment zones now.
