Out of the Rs 20 lakh-crore financial stimulus package, only Rs 3 lakh crore is sanctioned via the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS, according to an IANS report citing replies to an RTI filed by a Pune businessman Prafull Sarda. Of the sanctioned quantity, about Rs 1.20 lakh crore as loans to numerous states has been disbursed so far, Sarda stated. This comes to around a loan of Rs 8 per head of the 130 crore Indians, which will have to be returned at some point in time, he added. The government had announced the Rs 20 lakh crore package below the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan in May to tackle the Covid crisis.
The RTI query had sought particulars about sector and state-smart disbursement of the package and any balance quantity pending with the government. Maharashtra took the maximum loans below the ECLGS scheme of Rs 14,364.30 crore followed by Tamil Nadu (Rs 12,445.58 crore), Gujarat (Rs 12,005.92 crore), Uttar Pradesh (Rs 8,907.38 crore), Rajasthan (Rs 7,490.01 crore), Karnataka (Rs 7,249.99 crore. States/Union Territories like Lakshadweep Islands (Rs 1.62 crore), Ladakh (Rs 27.14 crore), Mizoram (Rs 34.80 crore), and Arunachal Pradesh (Rs 38.54 crore) have been in the reduced bracket, according to the RTI reply.
Also study: 81 lakh MSMEs advantage from Modi govt’s assured loans more than Rs 2 lakh cr already sanctioned
“Where is the remaining amount of Rs 17-lakh-crore from the total package, eight months after it was announced? Was this another fraud (Jumla) on the Indian people,” Sarda stated. ECLGS was introduced to assist Covid-hit MSMEs and other firms recover from the downturn throughout the lockdown period. Apart from MSMEs and Mudra loan borrowers, the government had in August expanded the scope of the ECLGS scheme to cover person loans for business enterprise purposes. As of December 4, 2020, 80.93 lakh accounts have been sanctioned involving Rs 2.05 lakh crore loans although 40.49 lakh accounts involving Rs 1.58 lakh crore have been disbursed, as per the information tweeted by the Ministry of Finance on Friday. The total quantity of eligible accounts was 1.39 crore (1,39,79,948) involving Rs 3.18 lakh crore – 20 per cent of the outstanding quantity.