This may probably be the best news to greet women entrepreneurs on a Monday morning – the government is now giving out collateral-free loans and the biggest section of borrowers so far have been women, reports TOI.
The Modi government’s newly launched scheme was intended to help small-scale entrepreneurs and vendors come out of the grips of money lenders. Although the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana or Mudra scheme was not intended to help any specific gender, budding women entrepreneurs have found this as a means to achieving their dreams.
From beauty parlours to boutiques, tuition centres and even selling mobile accessories online, women have emerged as a prominent section of borrowers for this scheme instituted by the government. There is no full-scale data compilation across all sectors yet, but officials are pretty certain that a majority of the loans are for beauty parlours and boutiques apart from street vendors. More than 29,000 crores have been sanctioned by the government so far.
And this is a big deal because women entrepreneurs get a pretty raw deal in India. Putting up collateral has always been an issue for women entrepreneurs in India because by and large property is still considered a man’s birthright even though the constitution guarantees inheritance of property to women too. Short of going to court to wrestle property from their own parents, women have little option. This new collateral-free loan system has made it fairly easy for them to now secure loans.
All that banks are doing now is checking if the borrower has some training or experience in the business. “If someone has pursued a course or worked in a beauty parlour, we are immediately sanctioning a loan,” said a source at Bank of India as reported by TOI.
The loan can be applied for a sum as low as Rs 50,000 and up to Rs 10 lakh. It comes with a tenure of five years and six months with the interest rate pegged at 10-12 per cent a year. Plus, there is the option of a Rs 5,000 overdraft through the PM Jan Dhan Yojana.
Interested women will find the banks fairly approachable and eager to hand out collateral-free loans because the government has fixed stiff targets of handing out Rs 1.22 lakh crore by the end of March to nearly two crore people. State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Syndicate Bank have topped the list of banks disbursing money under this scheme. So be sure to check this one out.
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