The Centre is planning to launch the revamped version of the Stand-Up India scheme by September, by doubling the term loans up to Rs 2 crore over five years compared with the previous scheme to accelerate credit flow to women, Scheduled Caste (SC), and Scheduled Tribe (ST) entrepreneurs, sources said.

Since its launch in April 2016 and the end of the scheme in March 2025, around Rs 36,000 crore was disbursed under the scheme to this category of small entrepreneurs, the bulk of which went to women entrepreneurs.

With the scheme coming to an end on March 31, 2025, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in the latest Budget that a new scheme will be launched for 0.5 million women, SC and ST first-time entrepreneurs. This will provide term loans up to Rs 2 crore during the next 5 years.

Scheme enhancements focus on higher credit

While doubling the loan amount in the revised scheme, the Centre is likely to keep most other features of the previous scheme, sources said.

The scheme will incorporate lessons from the successful Stand-Up India scheme. Online capacity building for entrepreneurship and managerial skills will also be organised.

The objective of the earlier scheme was to facilitate bank loans between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore to at least one SC or ST borrower and at least one-woman borrower per bank branch of all scheduled commercial banks.

The scheme was seen as a major push to empower SC, ST, and women entrepreneurs to break barriers by providing bank loans to help them start new businesses.

Existing structure proved effective with wide reach and sanction volume

Under the previous version of the scheme, entrepreneurs were facilitated with bank loans for setting up a greenfield project in manufacturing, services, trading sector and activities allied to agriculture.

For the scheme, interest rates charged were capped at 3% over the base rate of banks, in addition to a tenor premium. Loans were repayable within 7 years with up to 18 months of moratorium.

Entrepreneurs were required to provide margin money up to 15% of the project cost. Minimum mandatory margin is 10% of the project cost, even if the applicant was eligible for any state or Central government subsidy assistance.

Under the scheme, 2,75,321 loan applications were sanctioned during the nine years, with a sanction amount of Rs 62,807 crore. The scheme onboarded 79 lenders, which connected 1,49,675 branches for the scheme.