Loan assure scheme to make healthcare infra third wave-ready: Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday stated government-guaranteed loans for Covid-affected sectors would assist in constructing healthcare infrastructure and associated capability to assist cope with a attainable third wave.
Under the Rs 50,000-crore Loan Guarantee Scheme for Covid Affected Sectors (LGSCAS), banks would supply loans for constructing healthcare infrastructure in non-metro cities and smaller cities at a most rate of interest of seven.95 per cent. The scheme might be relevant to all eligible loans sanctioned throughout the interval from May 7, 2021 until March 31, 2022.
Sitharaman stated the Centre is in talks with business and companies sector stakeholders to make sure that the financial revival is nicely supported. “There is still a need for more trained doctors, more nurses, testing facilities, paramedics support system to ensure that Covid-19 impact is contained.”
“… so what this loan guarantee scheme does is to take care of nearly 70 per cent, I would say, of the requirements of being ready for a possible third wave, we want to prevent it … all of us will have to be together in putting the rights efforts in ramping up facilities at hospitals,” she stated at a on-line occasion on modernising healthcare ecosystem organised by Department of Financial Services, Health Ministry and NITI Aayog.
“We need to have tier 2, tier 3 towns and municipalities be ready with right kind of equipments,” the FM stated. The Centre had, in June, launched LGSCAS to provide monetary assure cowl for brownfield enlargement and greenfield tasks associated to well being and medical infrastructure.