PMMY sanctioned 68% of loans to women entrepreneurs in 6 years

Over the six years since its inception in April 2015, the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) reportedly sanctioned majority loans, that is, 68% to women entrepreneurs. According to data shared by member lending institutions (MLIs) on the Mudra portal as of Jun 25, 2021, 20.31 crore loans involving a sanctioned amount of Rs 6.86 lakh crore were extended to women entrepreneurs.

Institutional credit up to Rs 10 lakh is provided by MLIs for entrepreneurial activities to micro, small entrepreneurs that help in creating income-generating activities in sectors such as manufacturing, trading, services and activities allied to agriculture. The average loan size under the Mudra scheme has been around Rs 52,000 while 82% of the loans were SHISHU category.

24% loans were given to new entrepreneurs, and 51% loans were given to SC/ST/OBC borrowers. The scheme, as per a survey by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, had helped in 1.12 crore net additional employment from 2015 to 2018, including 96 lakh women employees.

Jahnabi Phookan, Immediate Past President, FICCI FLO and Director, JTI Group, told Financial Expresss that higher women share is very encouraging because the government has been talking about providing access to finance to women entrepreneurs and the Mudra Scheme has been one of the top programmes. “It is the first scheme we look at when it is about financial awareness and financial literacy among women entrepreneurs and the scheme has very effectively given this information in the public domain.”

The government had targeted Rs 3 lakh crore loan scheme under the Mudra scheme for FY22, down from Rs 3.21 lakh crore sanctioned in FY21, and Rs 3.37 lakh crore sanctioned in FY20. Mudra NPAs had increased to Rs 18,835 crore in FY20 in comparison to Rs 11,483 crore in FY19 and Rs 7,277 in FY18.

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Furthermore, the share of bank credit to MSEs in India’s overall gross bank credit had continued to decline for the fifth straight month in May this year. From 12.11% in December 2020, the MSE share contracted to 12.09% in January 2021; 11.8% in February; 11.3% in March; 9.7% in April; and further to 9.48% in May.