India’s post-Covid Budget transparent, futuristic: Anurag Thakur (IANS Exclusive Interview)

By Rohit Vaid and Subhash Narayan New Delhi, Feb 6 : India’s first Budget after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic is prudent, transparent and futuristic and is aimed at making the country self-reliant, Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur, told IANS.
Following are the excerpts from the post-Budget exclusive conversation IANS had with Thakur.
Q1. What were your first thoughts regarding the economic impact that will occur due to the Covid-19 lockdown? What was your first reaction? Ans. Today, you can see that India has emerged stronger from this pandemic. We know what happened in those countries which did not impose the lockdown or those that did but were not able to save as many lives.
India on the other hand emerged as one of the countries with the lowest mortality rates as we implemented a systematic lockdown. This was our main goal — to save as many lives — as possible.
Besides, we have grown our capacity. Earlier, we had negligible manufacturing of PPE kits, today we are a major exporter. We are also exporting vaccines which have been made in India to around 100 countries.