Women major beneficiaries of Mudra scheme in Haryana

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 20

When it comes to nurturing dream of entrepreneurship, women in Haryana have outpaced their male counterparts. According to data, 70% beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) were women in the state last year. The flagship scheme of the government offers affordable and collateral-free loans up to Rs 10 lakh to start a business under different categories.

The loans are given by banks, small finance banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and microfinance institutions. The scheme aims to strengthen forward and backward linkages across entire value chains anchored by industries, aggregators, franchisers and associations.

These loans are given primarily for non-agricultural activities or those allied to agriculture, such as dairy and poultry. Further, it is also given to non-corporate small business segments or manufacturing units, vendors, shopkeepers, women, youth and small-time entrepreneurs.

“In 2018-19, 3,41,503 loans were sanctioned under the scheme. Out of this, 2,37,797 were women beneficiaries. Of the total applications sanctioned, 75% belonged to women entrepreneurs. That speaks a lot about the latent entrepreneurial talent of women in Haryana and that is where the key lies for exponential growth,” said a senior banker.

In the financial year 2018-19, disbursements stood at Rs 1,100 crore for women entrepreneurs. The beneficiaries accessed loans from different banks to start up their own enterprises such as soft toy making, starting beauty parlour, and boutique.   These women are being trained in various skills at the local Rural Self Employment Training Institute (RSETI) and later on given loans to start their enterprise. The scheme has transformed lives of many rural women in the state. 

Bank officials said besides generating jobs, the scheme has managed to boost financial inclusion by taking last-mile credit delivery to micro-businesses and also brought a section of the informal sector into formal and taxed economy. Under the scheme, loans up to Rs 50,000 are disbursed without any processing fee and are categorised as ‘Shishu’. Loans under Rs 5 lakh are categorised as ‘Kishore’ and between Rs 5 and Rs 10 lakh (with a small processing fee) are categorised as ‘Tarun’.

At a recently held state level bankers committee meeting, Dr Rajesh Yaduvanshi, executive director, Punjab National Bank, said the PMMY was launched to ”fund the un-funded” by bringing such enterprises to the formal financial system and to extend affordable credit to them. A targeted scheme such as MUDRA is exactly what the sector needs in order to grow and flourish. 

Despite enthusiasm surrounding the scheme, banks in Haryana achieved only 81% of their designated target. Also, a key concern for the bankers is non-performing asset through these loans. According to the data, out of total outstanding of Rs 4,065 crore under the scheme as on March 2019, NPAs were to the tune of Rs 196 crore — 5% of the total outstanding amount under the scheme.