Covid-19: Truth is the first casualty of India's pandemic finance

Shadow banks will be the biggest losers. They will restructure their borrowers' loans but their own liabilities to banks won't get the same treatment

The true financial cost of Covid-19 is something India would rather not acknowledge, let alone bear — at least not until the pandemic has played out. 

That explains why the central bank on Thursday allowed a one-time restructuring of corporate and personal loans that have been under stress ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi put the country under a severe lockdown in March. 

Those nationwide restrictions have given way to more localised containment. But with India becoming only the third country after the US and Brazil to zoom past the 2 million infections mark, it will be months before the authorities can