⁍ India’s lenders were set a November 5 deadline on Saturday to waive interest payments on coronavirus support loans.
⁍ Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was forced to rethink the loan moratorium scheme.
⁍ The move could give relief to millions of people ahead of one of the country’s biggest festivals.
– With millions of Indians struggling to make ends meet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has come up with a novel way to help: It’s waiving interest on short-term loans, the BBC reports. According to Reuters, Modi’s government came up with the idea of a moratorium on short-term loans to help people dealing with the spread of coronavirus. The idea was to give people a chance to pay off the loans over a six-month period, but it quickly became clear that many of the people who took out the loans didn’t have the money to do so. As a result, lenders started charging “interest-on-interest” on the loans, and one Indian optician was one of the first to challenge the idea, the BBC reports. Now, the government has come up with a plan to waive interest on loans below $278,888, which could help millions of people ahead of one of India’s biggest festivals. The festival, Diwali, starts on Nov. 14, the BBC reports.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/india-loans/indian-lenders-given-deadline-to-implement-interest-waiver-scheme-idUSKBN2790ID