Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Stand-Up India Scheme Grants Over Rs 30,000 Crore in Loans Since 2016

Credit and finance for MSMEs: The number of women entrepreneur beneficiaries, however, dropped year-on-year from 27,025 in FY18 to 17,621 in FY19, 16,056 in FY20, and 11,490 in FY21 before recovering to 13,902 in FY22.

Despite government measures, as many as 3,057 women-led MSMEs were shut down post-Covid between July 1, 2020 and February 2, 2023, as per the government data. Credit and finance for MSMEs: The government’s Stand-Up India scheme, which enables credit for women and SC-ST entrepreneurs, has sanctioned 1.75 lakh loans amounting to Rs 39,517 crore as of February since its launch in April 2016. According to the data shared by the minister of state in the finance ministry Bhagwat Karad in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, 1.40 lakh or 80 per cent of total loans amounting to Rs 32,161 crore – 81 per cent of the total amount — were sanctioned to women entrepreneurs.

The scheme facilitates loans from scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore to at least one SC or ST borrower and one woman borrower per bank branch for setting up greenfield enterprise in manufacturing, services or trading sector and also for the activities allied to agriculture.

As of March 16, 2023, the scheme had received 1.98 lakh applications, of which 1.78 lakh were sanctioned involving Rs 40,247 crore through 82 lenders onboard and connected with over 1.37 lakh bank branches, according to the data available on the scheme’s portal.

However, year-on-year, the number of women entrepreneur beneficiaries had dropped from 27,025 in FY18 to 17,621 in FY19, 16,056 in FY20, and 11,490 in FY21 before recovering to 13,902 in FY22, the data shared by Karad in the Lok Sabha in December last year showed.

“The government has taken various steps towards effective implementation of the scheme. These, inter alia, include intensive publicity campaigns, simplification of application form, credit guarantee scheme, reduction in margin money and inclusion of activities allied to agriculture, handholding support through more than 8,000 Hand Holding Agencies (HHAs) on-boarded on the Stand-Up Mitra Portal for providing handholding to the aspiring entrepreneurs in areas like application filing, project report preparation, skilling, financial training etc,” Karad had said.

Notably, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the FY21 budget had reduced the extent of margin money to be contributed by the promoter out of the total project cost as a relief measure under the Stand-Up India scheme. The government had reduced it from up to 25 per cent to up to 15 per cent even as the minimum contribution from the promoter remained at 10 per cent of the project cost.

Nonetheless, despite government measures, as many as 3,057 women-led MSMEs were shut down post-Covid between July 1, 2020 and February 2, 2023, according to the data from the Udyam portal shared by the minister of state in the MSME ministry Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma in the Rajya Sabha recently. During the period, 25.71 lakh MSMEs registered on the Udyam portal out of around 1.38 crore total registrations were led by women entrepreneurs.

To further support women MSMEs, a concession of 10 per cent guarantee fee and enhanced guarantee coverage of 85 per cent against 75 per cent in other cases was introduced in respect of loans given to women entrepreneurs under the Credit Guarantee Scheme for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE).

(India CSR)