PM Modi’s Standup India scheme nears 1 lakh loan sanctions; up nearly 8% in FY21 so far

Credit and Finance for MSMEs: PM Modi’s scheme to promote entrepreneurship and self-employment – Standup India has sanctioned 98,454 loan applications so far, according to the government data sourced from Standup India portal. This is 7.8 per cent up from 91,319 applications sanctioned as of March 10, 2020, according to the data shared by the MoS Finance Anurag Thakur in the Rajya Sabha in March. The base of sanctioned applications in March had increased from 55,342 as of March 7, 2018, since the launch of the scheme in April 2016. The total number of applications received so far was over 1.15 lakh involving Rs 27,467.04 crore while sanctioned applications involved an amount of Rs 22,136.21 crore.

The standup India facilitates bank loans from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 crore to at least one scheduled caste/scheduled tribe borrower and at least one woman borrower per bank branch of scheduled commercial banks to launch their first venture in the manufacturing, services, or trading sector. The scheme currently has 305 lenders and connected with over 1.46 lakh bank branches even as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her FY20 budget speech last year had announced the scheme’s extension to till 2025.

Also read: Breaking down Reliance vs Amazon: The epic battle for Indian e-commerce bragging rights

The scheme largely had women entrepreneurs as its beneficiaries with more than 81 per cent account holders being women as of February 17, 2020, according to the Ministry of Finance. 73,155 accounts belonged to women entrepreneurs while Rs 16712.72 crore was sanctioned under the Standup India scheme to these women. Women and SC/ST entrepreneurs’ share in public procurement have also improved over the years. Women entrepreneurs’ share in the 25 per cent annual procurement target by the government from MSMEs was up from 0.15 per cent in FY19 to 0.32 per cent in FY20 and 0.61 per cent in FY21 so far. Similarly, for SC/ST entrepreneurs, the share was 0.54 per cent in FY19 increasing marginally to 0.55 per cent in FY20 and 0.62 per cent in FY21 so far, according to the data as of December 15, 2020, from the MSME Sambandh portal