SIDBI partners with confederation of women entrepreneurs to give fillip to Stand-Up India Scheme

Ludhiana: Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), the principal financial institution engaged in the promotion, financing and development of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), along with Confederation of Women Entrepreneurs of India (COWE) have launched the ‘Swavalamban Sashakt - MEGA CAMPAIGN’, a 20 webinar series to create Awareness Outreach & Business Opportunity Program’ to give a fillip to Stand Up India (SUI) Scheme – a flagship program launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi with the objective to facilitate bank loans between Rs.10 lakh and Rs. 1 Crore to at least one Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) borrower and at least one women borrower per bank branch for setting up a greenfield enterprise in manufacturing, services or the trading sector. The scheme has now been extended upto FY 2025.
 
Shri V. Satya Venkata Rao, Deputy Managing Director of SIDBI said, “Swavalamban Sashakt envisages to ignite the spark for business leadership in the targeted aspirant women entrepreneurs to start their entrepreneurial journey to become Swavalambi - The Job Creator as against Job Seeker. The thrust of SIDBI has always been to strengthen the MSME ecosystem. Government of India has further announced relaxations in the scheme on count of lower promoter contribution and adding agri-allied activities. This is an inclusive and highly impact oriented step towards AtmaNirbhar Bharat and promoting local entrepreneurship. We are hopeful that more and more rural and unserved segments shall onboard.”
 
While the national campaign commenced on February 3, 2021 by the hands of SIDBI DMD Shri Rao, the 2nd webinar program of Swavalamban Sashakt -MEGA CAMPAIGN was held on February 10, 2021 and the webinar series shall be held every Wednesday at 3.00 p.m. During the program, a successful SUI entrepreneur addressed the participants and called upon them to leverage the announcement in Union Budget 2021 towards reduction of the margin money requirement from 25% to 15% and inclusion of loans for activities allied to agriculture eligible under the scheme. Senior COWE functionaries and banker called upon aspirants to take advantage of these relaxations.
 
This webinar series is a participative interaction by all stakeholders, providing platform for awareness and genesis of business development. It is an opportunity for the invited businesses to showcase their business models, the aspiring women entrepreneurs to identify a business of choice and the financial institutions/bankers to generate business leads and guide aspirants on their expectations under Stand-Up India scheme.