Over 1,10,019 loans have been extended since the launch of ‘Stand up India’ scheme as on January 31, 2021, since its inception. The beneficiaries can get a loan of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 crore to start or increase their business.

Anurag Singh Thakur, Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, stated this in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha recently. 

Giving more details, the minister stated that Stand Up India Scheme was launched by the Government on April 5, 2016 and was subsequently extended up to the year 2025. The scheme facilitates bank loans between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore to at least one beneficiary belonging to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe and at least one woman beneficiary per bank branch of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs), for setting up greenfield enterprises in the manufacturing, services or the trading sectors. 

The scheme was aimed to boost MSME sector to kick start more manufacturing to strengthen tier-2 connect.

Taking it a step ahead in the recent Union Budget 2021, margin money for the project cost in the scheme was reduced from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. Activities allied to agriculture such as pisciculture, beekeeping, poultry, livestock, rearing, grading, sorting, aggregation agro industries, dairy, fishery, agri clinic and agribusiness centers, food and agro-processing, have also become eligible for the benefits.