India’s various schemes, including the MUDRA Yojana and Stand-Up India, have helped women unleash their economic power and put more money into their hands while direct benefit transfers into their accounts have ended pilferages, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on June 22.
“Through public sector banks, India has mandated collateral free loan to women startups via the Stand-Up India,” Sitharaman at the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, Paris.
Sitharaman was speaking at a panel discussion on how digital public infrastructure helps put money into the hands of women.
The Stand-Up India scheme was launched on April 5, 2016, to promote SC, ST and women entrepreneurs at the grassroot level, focusing on economic empowerment and job creation. In 2019-20, the scheme was extended till 2025.
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Out of the over 1,80,000 beneficiaries of the scheme till date, 1,44,787 were women entrepreneurs, while 26,889 belonged to the Scheduled Castes and 8,960 to the Scheduled Tribes.
The scheme facilitates bank loans ranging between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 crore to at least one SC or ST borrower and at least one woman borrower per bank branch of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) for setting up a greenfield enterprise in manufacturing, services or trading sectors and activities allied to agriculture.
Sitharaman said the MUDRA Yojana under which street vendors, merchants get collateral free loans has helped women majorly.
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Nearly 70 percent beneficiaries of Mudra, or Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency scheme loans, are women. Data shared in the Parliament by the government last year also noted that women comprised of 68 percent beneficiaries of the Rs 32 lakh crore loans given under the programme.
Sitharaman on February 1 this year had announced a one-time small saving scheme for women. The scheme is called Mahila Samman Saving Certificate, which will be available till March 2025.
The scheme has a tenure of two years and offers a fixed rate of interest at 7.5 percent. The deposit can be made in the name of a woman or a girl child. The scheme has a partial withdrawal facility as well. In this scheme, the maximum deposit amount is kept at Rs 2 lakh.
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