The government is conscious of the intensity of the second wave of Covid-19 and is assessing its full impact before coming out with further packages and interventions, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Dilasha Seth, Shrimi Choudhury, and Nivedita Mookerji in an exclusive interview. Edited excerpts:
What is your initial assessment of the impact of the second wave of the pandemic? RBI has revised its real growth estimates downwards by 100 basis points to 9.5 per cent.
The Finance Ministry’s assessment will take a bit longer considering the timings and uncertainties. RBI’s [growth] estimates are based on limited sectors,