New Delhi, November 12:  Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a slew of measures to bring relief to stressed sectors just ahead of Diwali 2020. The new announcements aim at benefitting companies and individuals, who lost their jobs due to Covid-19 induced lockdown. EPFO-Linked Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana Launched by FM Nirmala Sitharaman to Boost Employment & Create Jobs; Check Details of Benefits.

Among some of the other measures were announcing relief to boost the Residential Real Estate Income Tax relief for Developers and home buyers. Also, allocating funds for research and development of the Indian COVID vaccine.

Here are some of the measures announced by FM Nirmala Sitharaman in today's press conference:

Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana: The yojana was announced to boost employment and create jobs. This will be effective from October 1, 2020. Under the new scheme, any EPFO-registered employer takes on new employees or hires those who lost jobs between March 1 and September 30 will be given some benefits.

Credit guarantee support scheme: Scheme launched for the healthcare sector and 26 sectors stressed due to coronavirus. Entities will get additional credit up to 20 percent of outstanding credit, repayment can be done in five years' time (1-year moratorium + 4 years repayment).

PLI: 10 new Champion sectors will now be covered under the Production Linked Incentives Scheme to boost the competitiveness of domestic manufacturing. It is expected to give a significant boost to economic growth and domestic employment.

PM Awas Yojana:  1.8 million houses to be completed. Rs 18,000 crore to be provided over and above the Budget announcement to help 1.2 million houses be grounded and 1.8 million houses be completed.

Support for Construction & Infrastructure: The Performance security on contract to be reduced to 3 percent instead of 5 percent. Earnest money deposit will not be required for tenders and will be replaced by the Bid Security Declaration. Relaxations will be given till  December 31, 2021.

Farmers: Rs 65,000 crores being given to ensure adequate availability of fertilisers to farmers to enable timely availability of fertilisers in the upcoming crop season.

PM Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojana: An additional outlay of Rs 10,000 crores will be provided for PM Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojana in the current financial year, to boost rural employment.

COVID Suraksha Mission: Rs 900 crores have been allocated for research and development of the Indian COVID vaccine to the Department of Biotechnology.

In addition to this, FM further announced that Rs 3,000 crores will be released to EXIM Bank for promotion of project exports through Lines of Credit under IDEAS Scheme. Supported projects will cover Railways, power, transmission, road and transport, auto and auto components, sugar projects among others.

The recovery plan by FM comes a day after the Union Cabinet cleared a proposal to provide production-linked incentives of around Rs 2 lakh crore ($27 billion) over five years to boost manufacturing and create jobs in the country.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 12, 2020 02:43 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).