New Delhi, March 26: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to address media again on Thursday, March 26, at 1 pm. This is Sitharaman's second press meet this week, raising high hopes that the government will announce relief measures at a time when India looms under the threat of the deadly coronavirus. In a bid to contain the spread of COVID-19, a 21-day lockdown called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is in place across India since Wednesday.

In her address on Tuesday, Sitharaman had said that the government may come up with an economic package to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from causing major harm to the economy. Sitharaman had announced a series of relief measures for industry and taxpayers. During the press meet, the finance minister had said that the government was mulling about the economic package for the country.

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The Finance minister said as a first step they were addressing the compliance related issues and an economic package covering issues of concern to the industry would be announced separately later. "The economic package is going to be announced soon," Sitharaman said while announcing a set of compliance related issues including extension of dates for filing IT and GST returns.

In India, the total number of COVID-19 positive cases rose to 649, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Thursday. The death toll in India due to novel coronavirus has reached 15 in the country- with one death each reported from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 26, 2020 12:47 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).