New Delhi: Ministry of Finance, in the past seven years has launched various Schemes which have special provisions for empowerment of women. These Schemes have financially empowered women to lead a better life and chase their dreams of being an entrepreneur.
As we are celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8, we take a look at various schemes initiated by the Ministry of Finance which have benefitted the women in India.
Stand-Up India Scheme which was launched on 5 April 2016 to promote entrepreneurship at grass root level for economic empowerment and job creation. This scheme seeks to leverage the institutional credit structure to reach out to the underserved sector of people such as Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Women Entrepreneurs so as to enable them to participate in the economic growth of nation.
The objective of this scheme is to facilitate bank loans between Rs.10 lakh and Rs.1 crore to at least one Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) borrower and at least one woman borrower per bank branch of SCBs for setting up a Greenfield enterprise.
As on 26.02.2021, more than 81% i.e., 91,109 accounts with an amount of Rs. 20,749 crore have been sanctioned to women entrepreneurs under Stand Up India Scheme.
Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) – PMMY was launched on April 8, 2015 for providing loans up to 10 lakh to the non-corporate, non-farm small/micro enterprises. These loans are classified as MUDRA loans under PMMY. These loans are given by Commercial Banks, RRBs, Small Finance Banks, MFIs and NBFCs.
Under the aegis of PMMY, MUDRA has created three products namely ‘Shishu’, ‘Kishore’ and ‘Tarun’ to signify the stage of growth / development and funding needs of the beneficiary micro unit / entrepreneur and also provide a reference point for the next phase of graduation / growth.
As on 26.02.2021, about 68% i.e., 19.04 crore accounts with an amount of Rs. 6.36 lakh crore have been sanctioned to women entrepreneurs under MUDRA scheme since inception.
Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) was launched on 28th August 2014. It envisages universal access to banking facilities with at least one basic banking account for every household, financial literacy, access to credit, insurance and pension.
As on 24.02.2021, 23.21 crore accounts, out of the total 41.93 crore accounts opened under the scheme belong to women account holders.