Govt sanctions 15,341 loans under Stand Up India scheme to women entrepreneurs in FY17

The government sanctioned over Rs 70,000 crore loans to over 2 crore borrowers including women entrepreneurs under its Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) scheme in the fiscal year 2016-17 (FY17). 

It has disbursed Rs 77,916.54 crore loans to 2.12 crore borrowers including 1.68 crore women entrepreneurs under its PMMY scheme as of December 9, 2016, cited the Ministry of Finance in an official statement on Sunday. 

In an attempt to provide formal access of financial facilities to non-corporate small business sector (NCSBS), Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched PMMY scheme on April 8, 2015.  

Moreover, the government has sanctioned 15,341 total number of loans under 'Stand Up India' scheme to women entrepreneurs as of December 23, 2016.

In an attempt to provide credit access to women entreprenuers, Modi had launched Stand-Up India scheme on April 5 last year. 

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The scheme envisages extending bank loans between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 crore for greenfield enterprises set-up by Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and women entrepreneurs and extending effective handholding support to them.

Under the scheme, each bank branch has to extend loans to at least one SC/ST and one woman entrepreneur.  

The loan shall be a composite loan to meet the requirement of fixed assets and working capital with rate of interest being the lowest applicable rate of the bank for that category as per rating. 

The scheme shall be implemented through 1.25 lakh bank branches of all Scheduled Commercial Banks, the Ministry of Finance said in its yearly achievements report on various schemes.

It further noted that the Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Stand-Up India (CGFSI) is operational with a corpus fund of Rs.5,000 crore.