Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reiterated the government’s commitment to supporting women entrepreneurs, emphasizing their precedence under the flagship Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana scheme. The scheme, designed to provide financial assistance to beneficiaries, places a special focus on empowering women in business.
During the distribution of sanction letters to beneficiaries under the PM SVANidhi Se Samriddhi programme, a component of the PMSVANidhi scheme offering loans to street vendors, Sitharaman urged municipal officials to identify uncovered street vendors and help them avail the benefits of this initiative.
The SVANidhi Se Samriddhi program is an additional facet of the PMSVANidhi scheme, facilitating access to eight Central government schemes for eligible PM SVANidhi beneficiaries and their family members, aiming at their holistic development and socio-economic upliftment.
Sitharaman highlighted the success of the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile Trinity, stating that through this approach, beneficiaries could receive financial aid directly, eliminating intermediaries. Referring to a statement by the late Rajiv Gandhi, she emphasized the historical challenge of only a fraction of financial assistance reaching the intended beneficiaries, with a significant portion lost to middlemen.
The Finance Minister emphasized Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision in leveraging technology to ensure direct financial assistance to beneficiaries, preventing leakage of funds to intermediaries. She underscored the mass movement to open bank accounts, a crucial step in achieving comprehensive coverage of the scheme across the country.
Discussing the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana scheme, Sitharaman outlined its objective of providing loans through banks, with a specific focus on empowering women entrepreneurs. She highlighted that the scheme prioritizes women running small businesses or aspiring to start ventures, enabling them to approach banks for loans.
“One important aspect of the scheme is that women who are running small businesses or interested in starting a business can approach the bank and start their venture by receiving loans from PM Mudra Yojana scheme. Through this scheme, if 100 people were beneficiaries, 60 of them would comprise women. Women were accorded top priority under the PM Mudra scheme,” she affirmed.
