The minister of state in the Union Finance Ministry, Bhagwat Karad, shared recent data in the Rajya Sabha which reveals that between the period of 2016 and 2022, around 80.2 per cent of government loans under the Stand-Up India scheme were sanctioned to women entrepreneurs. The scheme was launched in April 2016, and as of December 2, 2022, 1,59,961 loans have been sanctioned to entrepreneurs. Of this lot, 1,28,361 loans were sanctioned to women-led businesses, while 23,797 were sanctioned to scheduled caste and 7,803 to scheduled tribe entrepreneurs.
The Stand-Up India scheme was launched to promote SC, ST and women entrepreneurship in the country. Each bank was directed to facilitate loans between ₹10 lakh and ₹1 crore to at least one SC/ST borrower and one woman borrower to set up greenfield enterprises in the sectors of manufacturing, services, trading and agriculture. As of March 2022, ₹30,160 crore were sanctioned under the scheme to 1,33,995 beneficiaries, of which ₹24,809 crore was sanctioned to women, ₹3,976 to 19,310 SC beneficiaries, and ₹1,373 crore to 6,435 ST beneficiaries.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the reduction of the extent of margin money for the borrowers from up to 25 per cent to up to 15 per cent in the 2021-2022 union budget. The ministry also expanded the loan to borrowers in pisciculture, beekeeping, poultry, livestock, rearing, grading, sorting, aggregation, dairy, and other agriculture-allied sectors. SIDBI’s Stand-Up Mitra portal was specially developed to support entrepreneurs applying for this scheme. It also connected them to networks of skilling centres, mentorship support, entrepreneurship development programme centres, and district-level industries centres.
*Image used for representative purpose only.