Calls for debt monetisation gain traction as Covid-19 cripples economy

Coronavirus has snuffed out lives of more than 2,100 people and infected nearly 63,000 in India

After the government, over the weekend, hiked market borrowing by 54 per cent in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, calls for monetising debt seem to be gaining traction with experts saying that repercussions of not spending to support the economy will be irreparable.

Conservative monetary economist and former RBI chief Raghuram Rajan, over the weekend, also pitched for monetising public debt and higher fiscal deficit in a ''measured'' manner to protect the economy and the poor and the vulnerable in these ''abnormal times''.

The first such call came in early April when Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac after the