Corporate sector moots ways to combat the coronavirus effect

In order to mitigate the effects of Coronavirus, the corporate sector suggested a few measures to the Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman and her team of officials in a meeting of nearly 20 sectors on Tuesday. These measures to deal with supply disruption include not just customs duty cuts (as prices of goods shipped from other markets had risen) and a reduction in the 14-day quarantine period at the ports, but also include relaxation in labour and environment regulations as well as more credit availability. There was a recommendation to airlift some of the basic drugs.

It also seems that the view on an across-the-board supply disruption for the pharma sector may be exaggerated as Indian companies have the capacity to manufacture many of the APIs but were operating at lower capacity as it was cheaper to import them from across the border.

Some of the industry insiders were also of the opinion that the quarantine period should be brought down to two days to aid the supply of raw material. There was a recommendation to ensure round the clock operation at the ports along with a request to ease labour rules so that plants could operate in three shifts.