COVID-19 impact | No new government schemes for a year, says Finance Ministry

Only schemes announced under Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan and Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana will be initiated and continued.

Moneycontrol News

June 05, 2020 / 02:57 PM IST

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (File image: Reuters)

The Finance Ministry has suspended all new schemes till the end of the FY21, CNBC-TV18 reported.

Only schemes announced under Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan and Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana will be initiated and continued, the report said.

New schemes up to Rs 500 crore that had received the green signal for FY21 stand suspended.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an "unprecedented demand on public financial resources," a directive from the Department of Expenditure (DoE) said.

There is a "need to use resources prudently in accordance with emerging and changing priorities," the DoE said.

The memo further said said that the continuation of schemes which have been given an extension till March 2021 will be re-evaluated while their continuation will be based on outcome review.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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