Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who on Wednesday addressed a presser detailing the whopping Rs 20 lakh crore economic package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, today continued with sharing information on the mega stimulus package.

The second tranche of Centre’s Rs 20 lakh crore fiscal stimulus package carried incentives for migrant workers, farmers, street vendors and small traders among others.

The Opposition led by the Congress has repeatedly attacked the Centre over the migrants issue and accused PM Modi for his absence of empathy towards migrant labourers.

The relief package, which is nearly 10 per cent of country’s GDP, has been announced for all segments including industries, workers, farmers, honest taxpayers, MSMEs, cottage industry among others.

On Wednesday, Sitharaman came out with 15 new and some enhanced measures to revive businesses, and support workers via fiscal incentives and regulatory easing under the mega stimulus package also known as the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ package.

Accordingly, the minister announced a slew of fiscal and regulatory measures for MSMEs, real estate, NBFCs, power distribution and general businesses and workers.

She attempted to decrease the regulatory burden on companies, while increasing the take-home pay of employees via these measures.

In terms of takeaways, the biggest were for the MSME sector which is considered to be the backbone of economic activity.

Besides MSMEs, a Rs 30,000 crore special liquidity scheme for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), housing finance companies (HFCs) and micro-finance institutions (MFIs) was announced.

Further, the FM has also announced Rs 45,000 crore partial credit guarantee scheme for NBFCs.

Additionally, a Rs 90,000 crore liquidity injection plan was announced for the financially stressed power distribution companies.

To ease financial stress as businesses get back to work, the Government announced to continue EPF support for businesses and workers for three more months providing a liquidity relief of Rs 2,500 crore.

In order to provide more take-home salary for employees and to give relief to employers in the payment of PF, EPF contribution is being reduced for businesses and workers for three months, amounting to a liquidity support of Rs 6,750 crores.

Also, the Government has planned to infuse Rs 50,000 Crore liquidity by reducing rates of TDS, for non-salaried specified payments made to residents, and rates of tax collection at source (TCS) for specified receipts, by 25 per cent of the existing rates.

Meanwhile, due date of all income-tax return for FY 2019-20 has been extended from 31 July, 2020 and 31 October, 2020 to 30 November, 2020 and Tax audit from 30 September, 2020 to 31 October, 2020.