Stand Up India Scheme sanctions over Rs 40,000 crore of loans to over 1.8 lakh borrowers

The Stand up India Scheme was launched in April 2016 to promote SC, ST and women entrepreneurs at the grassroot level focusing on economic empowerment and job creation

Loans worth over Rs 40,000 crore were sanctioned to more than 1,80,000 entrepreneurs under the Stand-Up India Scheme in the past seven years, the finance ministry said on Wednesday.

The 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 Stand Up India Scheme was extended till 2025.

The ministry had last April said that over Rs 30,160 crore worth of loans were disbursed under the scheme in the first six years, which implies that the past one year saw disbursals of around Rs 10,000 crore, or accounted for a quarter of all disbursals.

The government said today that 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.

Conditions to qualify for the loan include that at least 51 percent stake should be held by an SC, ST or woman entrepreneur for a non-individual enterprise. SC or ST and/or women entrepreneurs, above 18 years of age with at least 51 percent controlling stake in a greenfield, non-individual enterprise are eligible for a loan.