CM Palaniswami writes to Centre for special assistance to tackle corona

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (25th March) seeking special assistance of ₹ 4000 crores and other financial measures to tackle the situation arising out of COVID-19 pandemic.

He wrote asking for special allocation of ₹500 crores to pay 50% wages for NREGA workers for the wage employment lost in the months of March, April, May.

He also asked for the rescheduling the bank loan repayments at least for two months and not treat them as NPAs as a large number of industries and businesses especially those belonging to the MSME sector have been hit. He requested that the interest and penalties be waived for two quarters and enhance the working capital for all industries and businesses by 50% without any additional collateral.

To help unorganized workers overcome the hardship he has asked for ₹500 crore to be provided for providing the special wage loss and relief package. Tamil Nadu currently has around 12 lakh construction workers and 15 lakh unorganized sector workers. The Central government has already announced that cash payments for construction and unorganized sector workers would be done through DBT.