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Women Accorded First Priority Under PM Mudra Yojana Scheme
On Sunday (19 November 2023), the Union Finance and Corporate Affairs minister, Nirmala Sitharaman stated the Centre’s flagship PM Mudra Yojana Scheme. She announced that women entrepreneurs of the nation are accorded top priority falling under the scheme as mentioned above and will be provided financial assistance to the recipients. Regarding the same, she further mentioned that the officials working in the municipal centers are hereby to discover every street vendor of the uncovered streets to help them avail the benefits of the PM SVANidhi Se Samriddhi program. Under this scheme, street vendors of Rameshwaram are given loans by distributing sanction letters to the beneficiaries.
The program, SVANidhi Se Samriddhi is an auxiliary scheme component of the PMSVANidhi scheme to open the door for the recipients and their family members to have leverage over the eight central government schemes under SVANidhi Se Samriddhi scheme for their overall development and financial, social enhancement. Thinking back on the debut of Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile Trinity, a platform where the beneficiaries are provided with Aadhar cards through which the said beneficiary can go ahead and open an account under their name. Upon opening, the central government directly transfers the sanctioned amount to the said account, successfully avoiding the interference of the middlemen, said Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman.
The minister of finance further elaborated on the same by quoting the former Prime Minister of India and the Late Rajiv Gandhi’s words that a beneficiary or the recipient only receives an amount of ₹ 15 when the central government sanctions an amount of ₹ 100 which the remaining ₹ 85 goes to the middlemen and other people.
“He (Rajiv Gandhi) himself has mentioned this and after assuming office in 2014, in order to ensure that a beneficiary directly receives the financial assistance given to him by the Centre, Prime Minister Narendra Modi advised us to use technology so that the beneficiary is able to know whatever amount he has received directly, thereby middlemen can be avoided,” stated Ms. Sitharaman.
Furthermore, she added that these accounts were opened to provide the beneficiaries with the sanctioned amount by the central government and were brought up as a mass movement to achieve full coverage of the amount nationwide. Similarly, the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana Scheme aimed to provide or give out loans through banks across the country in order to empower the women entrepreneurs of the nation.
The major aspect of this scheme is that women who have already started running a small-scale business or are in the preparation stage of starting a business can approach the bank and start their business journey by receiving the loans from PM Mudra Yojana scheme. The highlight of this scheme is that out of 100 entrepreneurs or beneficiaries, 60 of them would be women as the women were accorded top priority under this scheme.
This yojana was launched in the year 2015, April, to provide loans of up to ₹ 10 lakh to non-corporate, non-farm small/micro enterprises. Along with that, she introduced a scheme for street vendors to avail of loans through banks through the PMSVA Nidhi scheme. Quoting the feedback of Vivek Joshi, Department of Financial Services Secretary, Nirmala Sitharaman said that initially, a bank offers a loan of ₹ 10,000 to a beneficiary, and when the amount is returned in the given time the loan is doubled up to ₹ 20,000. Once again, when the recipient pays it back on time, the amount is increased up to ₹ 50,000, and so on.
She remarked, “A QR Code is provided to the beneficiary, and through the scheme he will be able to receive commission also. This scheme has become popular across the country.”
Sitharaman said the PMSVA Nidhi scheme was launched first in Rameswaram due to the aspirational status of the Ramanthapuram district along with Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu and been entitled ‘aspirational districts’ which gives the districts a developmental status.
Over 2,200 vendors in Rameswaram have benefited from this scheme, a district that is solely dependent on tourism and over 5,000 people have been identified in this scheme in this district only. On the same day of this announcement, the Union Finance Minister offered her prayers to the famous Ramanathaswamy temple which is one of the 12 Jyotirlinga shrines. After that, Ms. Sitharaman participated in an event at the Government Medical College in the Virudhunagar district.
Upon handing in the sanctioned letters to the beneficiaries, the minister made her appearance to the media, the public, and local government authorities to make sure every street vendor benefits from this scheme. Going into the topic of empowerment and entitlement, Ms. Sitharaman said that with entitlement, a beneficiary is well aware of the scheme and proceeds to avail benefits from the bank through the said scheme. As for empowerment, the beneficiary empowers and motivates other people with the benefits they receive through this scheme so that those people steadily walk on to the path of becoming job creators as well.
The organizers of these two events, the Indian Overseas Bank, on the other hand, reported an amount sanctioned to around 6,679 people in Ramanathapuram and Virudhunagar districts as per the announcement of the Finance Minister.
According to the press release from the bank, it stated that for all the state-level bankers committee (SLBC) across the nation, the Indian Overseas Bank is the spearhead. Additionally, it is also the lead bank for the Ramanathapuram and Virudhunagar districts of Tamil Nadu. The particular event brought out the commitment of several banks towards the success of the PM SVANidhi initiative.
Other dignitaries who participated in this event included, the MD and CEO of Indian Overseas Bank, the Secretary of the Department of Financial Services Secretary, Vivek Joshi, and the Chairman of the SLBC (State-Level Bankers Committee), Ajay Kumar Srivastava.
