34.42 Crore Loans Worth Rs 18.60 lakh Crore Sanctioned under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana: Nirmala Sitharaman

Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) which was launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 8th April, 2015, to provide loans up to Rs. 10 Lakh to the non-corporate, non-farm small or micro enterprises, completes 7 years.

On the occasion of the 7th anniversary of the Scheme, Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman said, “It is noteworthy that more than 34.42 crore loan accounts amounting to Rs.18.60 lakh crore have been opened under the Scheme for the creation of income generating activities.”

On the theme of business environment and large-scale employment opportunities through PMMY, the Finance Minister said, “The Scheme has helped in creating an enabling environment particularly for small businesses and has helped generate large-scale employment opportunities at the grass roots level. More than 68% of the loan accounts have been sanctioned to women and 22% of the loans have been given to new entrepreneurs who had not availed any loan since the inception of the Scheme.”

On the occasion, Union Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Bhagwat Kisanrao Karad said, “The driving force behind launching Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) has been to provide institutional credit to micro, small and medium enterprises in a hassle free/seamless manner.”

“By providing assistance to 34.42 crore account holders, the scheme has been successfully reaching out to aspiring entrepreneurs, over the last seven years, since inception,” the MoS Added.

On the issue of credit flow, the MoS said, “The other noteworthy focus of PMMY has been able to extend credit to growing number of beneficiaries from the ‘aspirational districts’ identified by Niti Aayog, thus enabling flow of credit to these credit-starved districts.”

According to a statement by the Ministry of Finance, implementation of Financial Inclusion (FI) programme in the country is based on three pillars, namely, Banking the Unbanked, Securing the Unsecured and Funding the Unfunded.

Under this ongoing programme, these three objectives are being achieved through leveraging technology and adopting multi-stakeholders’ collaborative approach, while serving the unserved and underserved as well.

One of the three pillars of FI – Funding the Unfunded, is reflected in the FI ecosystem through PMMY, which is being implemented with the objective to provide access to credit for small entrepreneurs. PMMY focuses on the financial needs of all stakeholders, ranging from budding entrepreneurs to the hard-working farmers, through various initiatives of the scheme, read the statement.