The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, today approved the “Stand Up India Scheme” to promote entrepreneurship among SC/ST and Women entrepreneurs. The Scheme is intended to facilitate at least two such projects per bank branch, on an average one for eachcategory of entrepreneur. It is expected to benefit atleast 2.5 lakh borrowers.

The expected date of reaching the target of at least 2.5 lakh approvals is 36 months from the launch of the Scheme.

The Stand Up India Scheme provides for:

• Refinance window through Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) with an initial amount of ₹ 10,000 crore.
• Creation of a credit guarantee mechanism through the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC).
• Handholding support for borrowers both at the pre loan stage and during operations. This would include increasing their familiarity with factoring services, registration with online platforms and e-market places as well as sessions on best practices and problem solving.

 The details of the scheme are as follows:

• Focus is on handholding support for both SC/ST and Women borrowers.
• The overall intent of the approval is to leverage the institutional credit structure to reach out to these under-served sectors of the population by facilitating bank loans repayable up to 7 years and between ₹ 10 lakh to ₹ 100 lakh for greenfield enterprises in the non farm sector set up by such SC, ST and Women borrowers.
• The loan under the scheme would be appropriately secured and backed by a credit guarantee through a credit guarantee scheme for which Department of Financial Services would be the settler and National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company Ltd. (NCGTC) would be the operating agency.
• Margin money of the composite loan would be up to 25%. Convergence with state schemes is expected to reduce the actual requirement of margin money for a number of borrowers.
• Over a period of time, it is proposed that a credit history of the borrower be built up through Credit Bureaus.

Background:

The "Start up India Stand up India" initiative was announced by the PrimeMinister in his address to the nation on 15th August, 2015. The Stand up Indiacomponent is anchored by Department of Financial Services (DFS) to encouragegreenfield enterprises by SC/ST and Women entrepreneurs.

Credit guarantee mechanism enables institutional loans to SC/ST and women entrepreneurs, with refinance support and handholding services. The Stand Up India Scheme uses institutional bank credit to support greenfield non farm enterprises by SC/ST and women through loans repayable up to seven years, backed by a credit guarantee operated by NCGTC with DFS as settlor, and a refinance window via SIDBI. The Scheme couples financial support with pre and post loan handholding, contemplates margin money up to twenty five percent (with state convergence to reduce actual requirements), and seeks to build borrower credit histories through Credit Bureaus.