Team Herald
PANJIM: While accepting the dividend cheque of Rs 86.2 lakh from the EDC, the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that EDC can also think of financing the startups and IT companies in Goa under the New Start Up and IT policy of the state which will be announced soon.
However, the EDC officials told Herald that the scheme is good but some collateral or insurance with sensitised auditing needs to be done to make this scheme successful so that the EDC does not face the issue of bad debts. “Since we are not a banking organisation, we need to be extra careful,” the source said. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said in his speech that, “EDC is the only government body in Goa which is always showing profit along with CSR (corporate social responsibility) work and they are doing a good work. I congratulate them.”
The EDC has declared a dividend of Rs 100.92 lakh and paid Rs 86.20 lakh to the Government of Goa for FY 2019-20. The cheque was handed over to the Chief Minister in the presence of Board of Directors of EDC Limited. EDC board of directors under the chairmanship of Sadanand Shet Tanavade in its board meeting held on July 2, 2021 has reduced the interest rates for new MSME term loan borrowers from 10.5 per cent per annum to 9.5 per cent, a reduction in interest rate by 1 per cent with effect from July 1, 2021. With this reduction in interest rate EDC term loans are presently the cheapest in the market.
The Management has also decided that the loan processing time be reduced by simplifying the loan application form and various measures are contemplated to reduce some of the formalities needed for processing of loans. EDC shall be aggressively marketing and coming with new products and schemes to support the entrepreneurs and businesses in Goa.
With the State Government MIRS (Interest rebate) scheme, the net interest paid by the Goan borrowers actually work out to less than the existing bank rate. Under the Modified interest rebate scheme borrower gets an interest rebate of 9 per cent comprising of 2 per cent for a Goan borrower, 2 per cent for women borrower and 5 per cent for units located in backward talukas. About 42 borrowers have been benefited with interest rebate amounting to Rs 4 crore approximately during the financial year 2020-21.
On June 23 this year a total of 69 Chief Minister’s Rojgar Yojna (CMRY) loans were sanctioned wherein term loan amounting to Rs187.18 lakh and DITC share capital amounting to Rs 247.20 was approved. Since inception 2001, the Corporation has assisted 7,496 CMRY beneficiaries. As on May 2021, the total CMRY loan sanctioned amounts to Rs 22,922.39 lakh and disbursements of Rs 19,710.91 lakh on cumulative basis. During the FY 2020-21, loan assistance amounting to Rs 1,111 lakh has been sanctioned under CMRY scheme for 134 additional beneficiaries.
