Credit and Finance for MSMEs: Narendra Modi government’s two pet schemes to support entrepreneurship and self-employment by helping set-up micro-enterprises — Standup India and Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojna (PMMY) have women as their biggest beneficiaries. Nearly four-year-old Standup India scheme, under which bank loans of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1 crore are facilitated to at least one scheduled caste or scheduled tribe and one woman borrower per branch of scheduled commercial banks, over 81 per cent account holders are women as on February 17, 2020, according to Ministry of Finance.
73,155 accounts belonged to women while Rs 16712.72 crore has been sanctioned under the Standup India scheme these women. Out of the sanctioned amount, Rs 9106.13 crore has been disbursed for setting up “greenfield enterprise,” according to the statement by the ministry. Similarly, for PMMY launched in April 2015, “out of over Rs 22.53 crore loans sanctioned till January 31, 2020, more than Rs 15.75 crore loans extended to women” — 70 per cent of total borrowers. The scheme intends to give up to Rs 10 lakh loans to the non-corporate, non-farm small/micro enterprises classified as Mudra loans given by commercial banks, regional rural banks, small finance banks, microfinance institutions and non-banking financial companies.
The rise in support to women entrepreneurs through access to credit comes amid an increase in the share of public procurement as well from women-led micro and small enterprises (MSE) in the past two years. Through the government’s online marketplace for procuring goods from MSEs, women MSEs share has increased from nil in FY18 to 0.25 per cent in FY20 so far, according to the data available on the public procurement monitoring portal MSME Sambandh. The procurement from women MSEs was 0.15 per cent worth Rs 231.50 crore benefitting 1,398 in FY19. This increased to 0.26 per cent procurement worth Rs 272.73 crore from 2,626 women MSEs in FY20 so far. The other schemes benefitting women beneficiaries significantly included Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana, Atal Pension Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana.
