New Delhi, April 8 (IANS). So far, more than Rs 40 lakh crore has been disbursed through 57.79 crore loans under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY). The government gave this information on Wednesday on completion of 11 years of the scheme.
According to the Finance Ministry, this scheme was started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the year 2015, whose objective is to ‘fund the unfunded’ i.e. to give loans without guarantee to those people who were earlier unable to get loans from the banking system. Under this scheme, unsecured loans up to Rs 20 lakh are given to small non-corporate and non-agricultural businesses.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the scheme has played a big role in transforming the credit system for MSMEs and small entrepreneurs. “There has been a quiet change in India in the last 10 years, where crores of common people have started their own businesses with confidence,” he said.
He also said that about two-thirds of the total loans have been given to women, while about one-fifth have gone to first-time entrepreneurs.
According to government data, about 12.15 crore loans have been given to new entrepreneurs under this scheme, the total amount of which is about Rs 12 lakh crore.
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said that PMMY has emerged as an important initiative in promoting micro-entrepreneurship and strengthening financial inclusion. He said that this scheme has provided employment opportunities especially to the deprived sections like Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC), who constitute about 51 percent of the total beneficiaries, while the share of women is 67 percent.
The scheme works in four categories — Shishu (up to Rs 50,000), Kishore (Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh), Tarun (Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh) and Tarun Plus (Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh) — which are decided according to the need and business level of the beneficiaries.
Under PMMY, the needs of term loans and working capital for manufacturing, trading and service sectors as well as agriculture related works are met.
The scheme is part of a larger framework of financial inclusion, which aims to ‘bring the unbanked into the bank, protect the unsecured, and fund the unfunded’.
The government says that PMMY will continue to support entrepreneurs and contribute to achieving the goal of ‘Developed India’ by 2047.
–IANS
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