Chennai: The 23-member high level committee headed by former RBI Governor Dr C Rangarajan and comprising economists, experts and officials, constituted by the Tamilnadu government to bring the State’s economy back on the growth trajectory post Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, today submitted its report.
Dr Rangarajan submitted the report to Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami at the State Secretariat.
Later talking to reporters, Dr Rangarajan said the panel has made several recommendations, including revival of economic growth and to extend the free rice distributed through ration shops till November.
Chief Secretary K Shanmugam had in May issued a Government Order (GO) announcing Dr Rangarajan, who is also the former Chairman of PM’s Economic Advisory Council and currently Chairman of Madras School of Economics (MSE), as the Chairman of the
Committee which would have 23 others, including those from Industry, as members.
The Terms of Reference of the Committee included, assessing the overall immediate and medium term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on different sectors of Tamil Nadu’s economy, including the impact of the lockdown, additional costs and implications due to social distancing and other precautionary measures, besides assessing the short and medium term opportunities and threats.
The panel also suggested measures required to help important sectors of the economy to overcome the impact of pandemic, identified specific reform measures to be taken by the state government to support and promote the growth of important sectors of the economy, assessed the impact of the crisis on state government’s fiscal situation and suggested way forward to improve the fiscal position, including increasing the tax, GDP ratio and diversifying revenue sources and re-prioritizing expenditure, besides the issues to be taken up with the Centre by the State that included fiscal issues and economy promotion measures, whileĀ identifying possible sources of financing and funding for different sectors, including infrastructure projects, small businesses and other enterprises.