Credit and Finance for MSMEs: The Modi government’s Standup India scheme, which facilitates bank credit among Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore to scheduled caste (SC) or scheduled tribe (ST) and girls entrepreneurs, has sanctioned Rs 25,586 crore to more than 1,14,322 loan accounts as of March 23, 2021, considering the fact that its launch on April 5, 2016, according to Ministry of Finance. Women entrepreneurs had been the greatest beneficiaries of the scheme with 93,094 applications involving Rs 21,200 crore sanctioned followed by 16,258 applications with a sanctioned quantity of Rs 3,335.87 crore to SC entrepreneurs, and 4,970 applications involving Rs 1,049.72 crore sanctioned to ST entrepreneurs, the ministry stated in a statement on Sunday.
The quantity of accounts and the quantity sanctioned has elevated 25.2 per cent and 25 per cent respectively more than final year. As of March 10, 2020, Rs 20,466.94 crore was sanctioned to 91,319 loans, according to the information shared by the Ministry of Finance MoS in a written reply to a query in the Rajya Sabha on March 18, 2020. Following the announcement in the Budget speech this year by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the margin revenue requirement for loans below the Standup India scheme was lowered from up to 25 per cent to up to 15 per cent. Further, activities allied to agriculture had been incorporated in the scheme. Over 300 lenders have been onboarded to the scheme with more than 1.5 lakh branches.
Also study: PMEGP: New jobs by KVIC hit record higher in FY21 amid Covid Rs 2,188 cr margin money disbursed
“The government has taken various steps towards effective implementation of the Scheme. These, inter alia, include provision for submission for online applications by potential borrowers through an online portal, handholding support, intensive publicity campaign, simplified loan application form, credit guarantee scheme, campaign for target group through dedicated weekly programmes, etc.,” Thakur had stated.
Meanwhile, gross bank credit deployed to micro and tiny enterprises (MSEs) in December 2020 had elevated 6.6 per cent to Rs 11.31 lakh crore from Rs 10.61 lakh crore throughout the year-ago period, according to the RBI information. MSME sector accounted for a share of about 18 per cent in the total credit to the market and about 5 per cent in the total non-meals credit extended by the scheduled industrial banks in November 2020.