'Stand Up India', For Women And Dalit Entrepreneurs PM Modi's action plan to fund women and Dalit Entrepreneurs
By Ritu Kochar
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The Indian startup industry is waiting with their expectations filled up to the brim, for Modi's "Stand Up India' to take off and finally work its magic. It aims to provide equal opportunities to entrepreneurs from every spectrum of India, especially who find it hard to make their way into the world. Under the scheme announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year, each bank branch has been mandated to lend to one micro-enterprise promoted by a woman and SC/ST entrepreneur.
According to Kshatrapati Shivaji, Chairman and Managing Director OF Sidbi, the groundwork on implementation of the scheme has already started. The Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) will be raising the proposed Rs.10,000-crore corpus for "Stand Up India Fund' from RBI, which will be disbursed to Dalit and women entrepreneurs, a top official said. "We are working to have the corpus in place for the Stand Up India Fund corpus. It will be raised from the Reserve Bank through the priority sector lending shortfalls," SAID Shivaji to PTI. The amount will be used to "refinance loans extended by the banks'. Shivaji said plans are also afoot to have a credit guarantee fund for such loans, wherein the entrepreneurs can pay a premium which will help her/him get a cover in case of a loan default. (PTI)
Sidbi is currently working on four new credit guarantee funds, apart from the already operational Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises which gives a cover of up to Rs.1 crore for MSME loans, he said.
The funds include one devoted for factoring, educational loans, Mudra loans of up to Rs.10 lakh and also the Stand Up India loans, he elaborated. Shivaji further said the development finance institution is likely to close FY16 with a refinance of Rs.43,000 crore of loans extended to small businesses, which is up to Rs.7,000 crore more from last year.
Apart from these, Sidbi has set up a Rs.1,000 crore "Make in India Fund' to refinance bank loans to the manufacturing sector, Shivaji said, adding up to Rs.400 crore worth loans have already been sanctioned under the fund. (PTI)
It has also committed Rs.300 crore of the Rs.10,000 crore "Smile Fund' for small businesses announced earlier this year as part of the Start-Up India initiative, he said.
