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Rural Development Ministry signs MoU for bigger loans for women enterprises


Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY NRLM) under Ministry of Rural Development signed Memorandum of Understanding with nine Public Sector Banks and one Private Bank. These Banks are Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank, Central Bank of India, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Punjab National Bank, UCO Bank and IDBI Bank Limited.

These Banks have designed specific products for financing individual women entrepreneurs under the fold of DAY-NRLM. The loan products so designed will help women avail bigger ticket size loans for scaling up their enterprises. This move is in lines with the realisation of goal of making Lakhpati Didi, as announced by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.

Secretary, Rural Development Shailesh Kumar Singh advised Banks to leverage this opportunity to fund women SHG members with improved assets to start their economic activities in rural areas. This initiative will go a long way in providing employment in the rural areas and a number of women SHG members will be benefitted. 

Additional Secretary, Rural Development Charanjit Singh said that banks to make their branch officials aware about the specific products designed by them so that the rural women do not face difficulty in getting finance at the branch level.

DAY NRLM has witnessed SHG Bank linkage grow leaps and bounds as the programme evolved. More than Rs 9.5 crore loans have been extended by Banks to the self-help groups since the start of the Mission. The move of extending individual loans is a strategic shift in the programme indicating how women have graduated from small enterprises and are aspiring to scale up higher order enterprises.