Credit and Finance for MSMEs: Prime Minister Narendra Modi government’s two pet schemes to support entrepreneurship and self-employment by helping set-up micro-enterprises — Stand-Up India and Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojna (PMMY) — have women as their biggest beneficiaries. For the nearly five-year-old Stand-Up 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 were women as on February 26, 2021, according to Ministry of Finance.
“Govt should be complimented for making such gender-responsive policies, to galvanize the way for women entrepreneurship, and particularly for taking cognizance of women’s role in the economy. We do know that 60 per cent of Indian women are sitting at home and that needs massive awakening. The government has recognized this and it is the onus of business chambers such as ours to be the connecting dots to raise consciousness around schemes available,” Jahnabi Phookan, National President, FICCI Ladies Organization told Financial Express Online.
“As of 26.02.2021, more than 81 per cent, that is, 91,109 accounts with an amount of Rs 20,749 crore have been sanctioned to women entrepreneurs under Stand-Up India Scheme,” the ministry said in a statement on the occasion of International Women’s Day on Monday. This was up from 73,155 accounts belonging to women with an amount of Rs 16712.72 crore has been sanctioned under the Stand-Up India scheme as of February 17, 2020.
Likewise, for PMMY launched in April 2015, “about 68 per cent, that is, 19.04 crore accounts with an amount of Rs 6.36 lakh crore have been sanctioned to women entrepreneurs under MUDRA scheme since inception,” as of February 26, 2021. 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.
Importantly, government procurement from women-owned micro and small enterprises (MSEs) has also hit a record high in FY21 since the launch of the public procurement policy monitoring platform MSME Sambandh in December 2017 by the government. Government departments, organisations, and ministries had already purchased goods and services worth Rs 563.88 crore from 3,622 women-owned MSEs as of March 8, 2021, in the current financial year vis-à-vis Rs 393.43 crore worth procurement in FY20 from 3,655 women MSEs.
Meanwhile, the credit guarantee fund trust for micro and small enterprises (CGTMSE), which operates the credit guarantee scheme for micro and small enterprises (MSEs), had accorded guarantee approval to 67,171 loan accounts of women entrepreneurs for an amount of Rs 3,366.63 crore as of December 12, 2020, in the current financial year, according to the data shared by the MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha in February this year. The accounts approved during FY20 for women entrepreneurs under CGTMSE to support their business expansion and growth stood at 1,24,984 involving Rs 5,367.38 crore.
