Economic Package – Bada Business

Indian Banks Have Sanctioned Rs 1.63 Lakh Crore Loans to MSMEs Under ECLGS, Says Finance Ministry

New Delhi, September 13: The Union Finance Ministry on Sunday said that Indian banks have sanctioned loans worth over Rs 1.63 lakh crore to MSMEs and other eligible businesses so far. These loans have been sanctioned under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for over 42 lakh borrowers and till now over Rs 1.18 lakh crore has been disbursed, the Ministry added.

Informing about the sanctioned status, the Union Finance Ministry took said in a statement, “As on 10.09.2020, as reported by Public Sector Banks and top 23 private sector banks, additional credit amounting to Rs 1,63,226.49 crore has been sanctioned to 42,01,576 borrowers. Amount of Rs 1,18,138.64 crore has been disbursed to 25,01,999 borrowers as on 10.09.2020.”

Laying down the progress of the schemes announced under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat economic package in May, the Union Ministry said that around 37 proposals involving an amount of Rs 10,590 crore have been approved under the Rs 30,000 crore Special Liquidity Scheme for NBFCs, housing finance companies and micro-finance institutions till September 11. Adding more, it said, six more applications seeking financing of Rs 783.5 crore are under process.

On the Rs 30,000 crore Additional Emergency Working Capital Funding for farmers through NABARD, the ministry said that as on August 28, 2020, Rs 25,000 crore has been disbursed. The balance amount of Rs 5,000 crore under the Special Liquidity Facility (SLF) has been allocated to NABARD by the RBI for smaller NBFCs and NBFC-MFIs. Also, ANABARD is finalising operational guidelines to roll it out soon.

Apart from this, the Centre said that NABARD has also launched Structured Finance and Partial Guarantee scheme in collaboration with two agencies and banks to help unrated NBFCs and MFIs to get credit from lenders. The mechanism will enhance eligibility of credit by 5-6 times to those small MFIs who do not have any rating.

Among other details, the ministry said that refunds of over Rs 1.01 lakh crore have been issued to more than 27.55 lakh taxpayers between April 1, 2020, and September 8, 2020. Also, income tax refunds of Rs 30,768 crore have been issued in 25,83,507 cases and corporate tax refunds of Rs 70,540 crore have been issued in 1,71,155 cases. The ministry said that all corporate tax refunds up to Rs 50 crore have been issued in all cases.

New Delhi, September 8: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday announced that the Central government had so far sanctioned loans amounting to Rs 1.61 lakh crore to MSMEs under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS). The amount has been sanctioned as a component of the Rs 20-lakh crore Self-Reliant India Mission package, announced by FM Sitharaman in May 2020 for firms to tackle the economic effect of COVID-19 pandemic.

Informing about the update, the Union Finance Minister took to Twitter and wrote, “As of 03 Sept 2020, the total amount sanctioned under the 100% Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme by #PSBs and private banks stand at Rs 1,61,017.68 crore, of which Rs 1,13,713.15 crore has already been disbursed.”

Adding more, Sitharaman wrote, “Compared to 24 Aug 2020, there is an increase of Rs 5,022.06 crore in the cumulative amount of loans sanctioned & an increase of Rs 7,786.16 crore in the cumulative amount of loans disbursed by both #PSBs and private sector banks combined as on 03 Sept 2020.”

Here’s what the Finance Minister’s office tweeted:

Under the 100% ECLGS, the loan amounts sanctioned by Public Sector Banks increased to Rs 78,067.21 crore, of which Rs 62,025.79 crore has been disbursed as of 03 Sept 2020. Here are the bank-wise & State-wise details: #AatmanirbharBharat #MSMEs pic.twitter.com/T3leieOZNG

— NSitharamanOffice (@nsitharamanoffc) September 7, 2020

Among other details, the Finance Minister said that public sector banks have so far sanctioned Rs 78,067.21 crore under the ECLG scheme, and Rs 62,025.79 crore has been disbursed as of September 3, 2020. She added that the Union Finance Ministry regularly held review meetings with the banks to ensure that the scheme achieves its objective of providing adequate liquidity to the MSME segment during the current difficult period.

As per government estimate, the ECLG scheme would benefit more than 30 lakh units of MSMEs and other businesses to restart their businesses after the COVID-19 lockdown. It is to be known that the government had announced its plans for Rs 3 lakh crore as an additional credit to MSMEs and small businesses under Aatma Nirbhar package.

Under the scheme, the loans would be available to units — whose accounts are standard — with up to Rs 25 crore outstanding and turnover of up to Rs 100 crore. However, these firms will not have to provide any guarantee or collateral of their own as it will be 100 per cent guaranteed by the government and a total liquidity of Rs 3 lakh crore to more than 45 lakh MSMEs will be provided.