Letters to the editor dated December 3, 2020

There is now a debate on who should get priority for Covid vaccination. There are proposals to first vaccinate healthcare workers, followed by security personnel and the elderly. As the objective is to stop or decelerate the spread of the virus, those who come in contact with a large number of people must also be vaccinated on a priority basis. This would include shopfloor workers, office-goers, autorickshaw drivers, bus conductors, vegetable vendors, etc. The elderly and homemakers, who are generally indoors, will have some natural protection. Also, the vaccinations should be taken up location-wise, starting with those with high number of cases first.

Pune

Apropos the editorial ‘Global reset’ (December 3), the Covid pandemic has affected the global economy at large. The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is pinning its hopes on India, besides China, in igniting a revival of the global economy. The recent increases in GST collections are a sign that the economy is getting back on track.

The movement of finished goods across the country is picking up rapidly, which is evidenced by the Railways handling a record volume of freight in November.

The Prime Minister is taking all efforts to ensure that the vaccine for Covid is available for public at the earliest.

The change in the US administration is likely to give a much-needed push to global trade, especially in oil, food and construction, thus creating a conducive atmosphere in getting back to normalcy.

Chennai

This has reference to ‘Looking beyond rate cut to boost credit flow’ (December 3). Both interest rates and liquidity have been managed well by the RBI and in spite of various relief measures and stimulus packages the credit offtake is not improving.

The surplus liquidity of ₹5.5 trillion is huge and not using it for economic activity is wasteful. In the absence of new investments, the liquidity should be used to revive manufacturing facilities that were suspended due to lack of funds, purchase of idle manufacturing facilities, permitting longer working capital cycles, encouraging venture capital activities and refinancing exiting loans with longer tenor so that the financial stability improves.

There is scope for construction of clinics and hospitals all over the country and huge amount of funds can be used for this purpose. With increasing food production and population, more storage facilities are needed for agricultural produce and banks should come forward to finance all such requirements.

Mumbai

This refers to ‘Why it is better to be in than out of RCEP’ (December 2). When India was negotiating certain terms for its entry into RCEP, there were widespread protests from the farming community, especially the dairy sector.

The anxiety of the Indian dairy sector was on account of possible dumping of products from New Zealand and Australia, which are pioneers in this sector and whose strength is quality. Indian dairy farmers, most of whom belong to the unorganised sector, will need to scale up the quality of their produce if they have to compete with players from these countries

Halekere Village, Karnataka

Apropos ‘Back to the basics of manufacturing’ (December 3), till around the late 1980s manufacturing used to be the backbone of our economy. If we want to regain the lost glory of the sector, a lot of work needs to be done.

To achieve the goal of the sector contributing 25 per cent of GDP, we will have to create skilled manpower which cannot be easily replaced by automation. We cannot become an export-oriented economy in a few months, so the path which we will have to take should be a balanced one. First we will have to create special economic zones around coastal zones of the country so that trade movement will become faster.

Noida

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