Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said an amount of “Rs 23.2 lakh crore had been sanctioned in 40.82 crore loan accounts” till March 24 under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) since its inception.
On the occasion of the 8th anniversary of PMMY, the minister said about 68 per cent of accounts under the scheme belong to women entrepreneurs and 51 per cent of accounts belong to entrepreneurs of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) and Other Backward Caste (OBC) categories. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched PMMY on April 8, 2015, with the aim to facilitate easy collateral-free micro credit of up to Rs 10 lakh to non-corporate, non-farm small and micro entrepreneurs for income-generating activities.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Finance, the loans under PMMY are provided by member lending institutions (MLIs), which are banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), micro finance institutions (MFIs) and other financial intermediaries.
Highlighting indigenous growth through micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the minister said, “The growth of MSMEs has contributed massively to the ‘Make in India’ programme as strong domestic MSMEs lead to increased indigenous production both for domestic markets as well as for exports.”
The minister added that the scheme helped in the generation of large-scale employment opportunities at the grassroots level and also has proved to be a game changer while boosting the Indian economy.
On the occasion, Union Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Bhagwat Kisanrao Karad said, “The PMMY scheme aims to provide collateral-free access to credit in a seamless manner to micro enterprises in the country. It has brought the unserved and under-served sections of the society within the framework of institutional credit.”
He said the government policy of promoting MUDRA led millions of MSME enterprises in the formal economy and helped them to get out of the clutches of money-lenders offering very high cost funds.