Context: Recently, the Union Finance Minister announced the measures for providing employment and support to businesses, state governments as well sectors such as education and health as part of the fifth and final tranche of Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

• The announced measures also form a part of the Rs. 20 lakh crore economic stimulus package to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Earlier, the Economic Stimulus-I, the Economic Stimulus-II, the Economic Stimulus-III and the Economic Stimulus-IV were announced.

Key Points
1) Increase in allocation for MGNREGS to provide employment boost

• Under this the Government will allocate an additional Rs.40,000 crore under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA).
• It will help generate nearly 300 crore person days in total, addressing the need for more work by the migrants who are returning to their hometowns due to the pandemic and lockdown.
• Creation of a larger number of durable and livelihood assets including water conservation assets which will boost the rural economy through higher production.

2) Health Reforms & Initiatives

Public Expenditure on Health will be increased by investing in grass root health institutions and ramping up Health and Wellness Centres in rural and urban areas. Some of them are as follows:

• Setting up of Infectious Diseases Hospital Blocks in all districts.
• Strengthening of lab networks and surveillance (Integrated Public Health Labs in all districts and blocks)
• The National Institutional Platform for One Health by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will encourage research.
• Implementation of National Digital Health Blueprint under the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM).
• NDHM was recommended to be established as a purely government organization with complete functional autonomy on the lines of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and Goods and Services Network GSTN.

3) Technology Driven Education with Equity post-COVID

• Under this govt will going to launch PM eVIDYA, a programme for multi-mode access to digital/online education to be launched immediately. 
• Manodarpan, an initiative for psycho-social support for students, teachers and families for mental health and emotional well-being to be launched immediately as well. 
• New National Curriculum and Pedagogical framework for school, early childhood and teachers will also be launched. 
• National Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Mission for ensuring that every child attains Learning levels and outcomes in grade 5 by 2025 will be launched by December 2020.

4) Further enhancement of Ease of Doing Business through IBC related measures

• Minimum threshold to initiate insolvency proceedings has been raised to Rs.1 crore (from Rs.1 lakh, which largely insulates Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises-MSMEs).
• Special insolvency resolution framework for MSMEs under Section 240A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) will be notified.
• Suspension of fresh initiation of insolvency proceedings up to one year, depending upon the pandemic.
• Empowering the Central Government to exclude Covid-19 related debt from the definition of “default” under the IBC for the purpose of triggering insolvency proceedings.

5) Measures Related to the Companies Act

• Decriminalisation of Companies Act, 2013 violations involving minor technical and procedural defaults (shortcomings in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting, inadequacies in Board report, filing defaults, etc).
• Majority of the compoundable offences sections to be shifted to Internal Adjudication Mechanism (IAM).
• The amendments will de-clog the criminal courts and National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

6) Ease of Doing Business for Corporates
Under this key reforms include:

• Direct listing of securities by Indian public companies in permissible foreign jurisdictions.
• Private companies which list Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) on stock exchanges not to be regarded as listed companies.
• Including the provisions of Part IXA (Producer Companies) of Companies Act, 1956 in Companies Act, 2013.
• Power to create additional/specialized benches for National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).
• Lower penalties for all defaults for Small Companies, One-person Companies, Producer Companies and StartUps.

7) Public Sector Enterprise Policy for a New, Self-reliant India
Government will announce a new policy whereby:

• List of strategic sectors requiring the presence of Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) in public interest will be notified.
• In strategic sectors, at least one enterprise will remain in the public sector but private sector will also be allowed.
• In other sectors, PSEs will be privatized (timing to be based on feasibility etc.).

8) Support to State Governments

• The Centre has decided to increase borrowing limits of States from 3% to 5% for 2020-21 only which will give States extra resources of Rs.4.28 lakh crore.
• Part of the borrowing will be linked to specific reforms (including recommendations of the Finance Commission).

Reform linkage will be in four areas:

• Universalisation of ‘One Nation One Ration card’.
• Ease of Doing Business.
• Power distribution.
• Urban Local Body revenues.

States can borrow more in the following pattern, notified by the Department of Expenditure:

• The first 0.5% will be an unconditional increase.
• Next 1% in 4 tranches of 0.25%, with each tranche linked to clearly specified, measurable and feasible reform actions.
• The last 0.50% if milestones are achieved in at least three out of four reform areas.

Concerns associated to Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan

• India’s welfare state does not lack intentions but lacks resources as no amount of CSR, philanthropy, or government borrowing can provide the resources for the care of weak, vulnerable, and unlucky that will flow from more productive cities, firms, and citizens.
• The government expects to take a big hit on estimated tax revenues and proceeds of disinvestment and if the ‘gap’ has been estimated at about Rs 4.2 lakh crore, the additional borrowing will fill that ‘gap’, which is unavoidable and the amount of Rs 4.2 lakh crore certainly cannot be counted as a fiscal stimulus.
• There is no clarity from the government regarding cuts in the expenditure of other non-essential things.
• There is a possibility of linking RBI’s economic measures with the Centre’s economic package as liquidity works on the supply side and fiscal stimulus is needed for the demand side.