Stand Up India Scheme to benefit at least 2.5 lakh SC/ST, women entrepreneurs

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Government has given approval to Stand-up India Scheme for promoting entrepreneurship among scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and Women.

This was stated by Jayant Sinha, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha Friday.

The Stand Up India Scheme was launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 5.

The Scheme envisages extending bank loans between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore for setting up greenfield enterprises by scheduled caste/scheduled tribe and Women entrepreneurs and also extending effective handholding support to them.

The scheme is being implemented through all scheduled commercial banks. Each bank branch is to extend loans to at least one scheduled caste/scheduled tribe and one women entrepreneur. Enterprises covered under the scheme may be in manufacturing, services or the trading sector.

While loans are to be extended by banks, a credit guarantee fund of Rs 5,000 crore for providing guarantee cover for such loans has been approved. Provision of initial capital of Rs 500 crores to the corpus in FY 2016-17 has been made.

The scheme is expected to benefit at least 2.5 lakh borrowers based on two new enterprises by a bank branch. Each enterprise will provide jobs depending on the nature of its operations.