Budget 2021: Adequate provisions made for vaccination; will provide more if required, says Expenditure Secy

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget 2021 presentation enthused the market, which closed over 4 percent higher. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, TV Somanathan, Expenditure Secretary and Tuhin Kanta Pandey, DIPAM Secretary decoded the fineprint from the Budget.

Expenditure Secretary TV Somanathan said, "The exact manner in which this will be spent is something that will be decided separately by the health ministry in consultation with NITI Aayog. But we have made adequate provisions to vaccinate the vast majority of the population. We don't yet have complete certainty on what the unit cost is of vaccinating one person – it is somewhere in the region currently of about Rs 600 for two doses plus incidental expenses. So what we have provided is adequate to vaccinate more than 40 crore people as of today's reckoning. But prices change, prices may fall when you get more vaccines. It is possible that the number of people to be vaccinated may change. So with so much uncertainty we have made reasonable provision of Rs 35,000 crore, but as the honorable finance minister said in parliament, we are ready to provide more if it is required. So, this is an initial provisioning."

Tuhin Kanta Pandey, DIPAM Secretary said, "The disinvestment needs to be understood in a longer timeframe rather than one year because honorable finance minister has actually unveiled a very strategic path breaking policy in terms of how would you remain in public sector, will remain in business. So, this is something which is fully on a strategic sector bare minimum presence will be kept and the rest will be divested and privatised. Other non-strategic factors are up for privatization and the timing, etc. will be depending upon the market interest, investor sentiment, feasibility, sequencing and so on. But this is a path breaking thing and it takes us over a period of 4-5 years – how the privatization work will be there. So new pipelines would have to be created. So far as the target is concerned, we have our pipeline which due to COVID we had disruptions but that is back on track and we hope to complete and honorable finance minister did mention that these transactions we are definitely going to close."