The Reserve Bank of India announced on Wednesday the allocation of $6.7 billion in cheap financing for health-related companies, including vaccine manufacturers and hospitals, in response to the widespread outbreak of the Coronavirus in the country. Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das stated that the concessional loans will be available until March 31 of next year, and he pledged to resort to "unconventional" measures if the health situation deteriorates. His remarks came as India reported a record number of deaths, with 3,780 fatalities in 24 hours and 382,000 COVID-19 infections.
Das stated, "We must keep up with the devastating speed at which the virus is affecting different regions of the country through swift and large-scale measures." He added that the new measures aim to improve emergency healthcare at a time when hospitals are suffering from severe shortages of oxygen, beds, and vaccines. He emphasized that "the immediate goal is to preserve human lives and restore normalcy through all possible means."
India's health system, which suffers from funding shortages, has struggled to cope with the recent wave of COVID-19, with patients dying in hospital parking lots due to a lack of oxygen and beds. The country has attempted to recover from losses caused by strict lockdowns that lasted for months, leading to a collapse of the labor market and an economic contraction of about a quarter between April and June of last year.
As the third-largest economy in Asia faced a slowdown before the pandemic, the global economic downturn due to the virus and India's implementation of some of the world's most stringent lockdown measures delivered a severe blow to the country. Amid fears of a repeat of last year's economic damages, authorities have thus far imposed limited restrictions in an attempt to balance keeping the economy moving and controlling the pandemic in the most affected areas.
New Delhi hopes to see an improvement in the economy thanks to the extensive vaccination campaign that began in January, with 160 million vaccine doses administered so far in the country of 1.3 billion people.
