Union Cabinet approves Stand Up India Scheme for women and SC/ST

The Union Cabinet has approved the Stand Up India Scheme to promote entrepreneurship among Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) and Women entrepreneurs.
Decision in this regard was taken by Union Cabinet meeting chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
The Scheme seeks to facilitate at least two such projects on an average one for each category of entrepreneur per bank branch.
The Stand-up India is component of Start-up India, Stand up India slogan anchored by Department of Financial Services (DFS) to encourage greenfield enterprises by Women and SC/ST entrepreneurs.
Features of Stand Up India Scheme

• It will refinance window through Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) with an initial amount 10,000 crore rupees.
• Under it, a credit guarantee mechanism would be created through the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC). It will be the operating agency for the loan.
• It will provide handholding support to the borrowers at both pre loan stage and during operations stage.
• It would seek to increase their familiarity with factoring services, e-market places and registration with online platforms as well as sessions on best practices and problem solving.
• It would provide women and SC/ST entrepreneurs bank loans repayable up to 7 years. It would be between 10 lakh to 1 crore rupees for greenfield enterprises in the non-farm sector.
• The overall intent is to leverage the institutional credit structure to reach out to this under-served population. For this margin money of the composite loan will be up to 25%.

It is expected that this scheme would benefit atleast 2.5 lakh borrowers and expected date of reaching the target of approvals is 36 months from the launch of the Scheme.
Background
Prime Minister in his Independence Day address to the nation on 15th August, 2015 had announced the “Start-up India, Stand up India” initiative.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2016