World Trade Centre, Goa in association with WTC Mumbai, Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Limited (MUDRA Bank), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and The International Centre of Goa (ICG) organised a programme on “Microfinance: A Game Changer for Financial Inclusion” on Friday to highlight the tagline of Mudra Bank.
In his inaugural speech, A O Kuruvilla, Deputy Director, World Trade Centre, Mumbai said that the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector accounts for 80 per cent of the jobs created every year. In USA almost 50 per cent employees work in SME as against 79 per cent in China.
Manguirish Pai Raiker, MSME Board Member & Advisor, WTC Goa informed the gathering that, “According to the PMMY Report from Mudra Bank, the amount sanctioned under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (2015-2016) for Goa is Rs 399.33 crore, of which, Rs 376.04 crore has already been disbursed. For the year 2016-2017 as on June 3, 2016, Rs 33 crore is already sanctioned. This shows that there is an imperative need to create awareness on the available monetary schemes.”
Speaking through skype (as his flight could not land in Goa due to inclement weather), Jiji Mammen, CEO of Mudra Bank explained that since SMEs are the second most major job creator after agriculture, the Union government has taken many steps to boost this sector.
“We have three schemes. (1) Shishu: which disburses loan ranging from Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000; (2) Kishore: which disburses loan fro Rs 50,000 to Rs five lakh and (3) Tarun: which disburses loan ranging from Rs five to Rs ten lakh. Since RBI has mentioned that no collateral will be required for loans up to Rs 10 lakhs, it will benefit a lots of SMEs to get their working capital fund,” said Mr Mammen.
Mr Jaikish, General Manager and Officer-in-Charge, Reserve Bank of India – Goa Regional Office however warned the banks that they need to improve their systems to make it more user friendly for the SMEs. “If the banks do not innovate with time, it will provide space for private players to jump into the fray and give better credit facilities to the customers.”
