Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Ltd (MUDRA) is toying with the idea of setting up an online platform to help more micro units across the country avail MUDRA loans for their operations, a top official said.
The proposed platform would not only focus on making it easier for micro units to apply and avail MUDRA loans, but also use analytics so that lenders also get more information about the borrowers, Jiji Mammen, Managing Director & CEO, MUDRA, told BusinessLine here.
For the current fiscal, the total MUDRA loans disbursement target has been set at ₹2.44-lakh crore. This is a 36 per cent increase over the MUDRA loan target of ₹1.80- lakh crore set for 2016-17.
“We have already disbursed ₹70,000 crore this fiscal. The target of ₹2.44-lakh crore is achievable. There is so much demand out there,” he said.
Surpassing the target Mammen said MUDRA had surpassed targets in each of the two years since its launch in April 2015.
In the first year, as against a target of ₹1.22 lakh crore, the actual disbursement in the fiscal stood at ₹1.37-lakh crore. During the second year, the MUDRA loan disbursement stood at ₹1.805-lakh crore as against a targeted ₹1.8-lakh crore. So, in the two years since its launch, as much as ₹3.17-lakh crore of MUDRA loans have been disbursed,” Mammen said.
India has about 6 crore micro units, of which only about 5 per cent get formal credit. In 2014-15 — prior to MUDRA’s launch — the public sector banks’ lending to micro units stood at about ₹33,000 crore.
However, in the first year after MUDRA’s launch, the total credit by PSBs to such units expanded to about ₹59,000 crore. “There has been a doubling of credit to micro units in the first year as far as PSBs were concerned. Together with the ₹60,000 crore target for MFIs, financial institution and other lenders, the total credit flow target to micro units touched ₹1.2-lakh crore for 2015-16 and they achieved a disbursement of ₹1.33-lakh crore.”
What they are MUDRA loans are available for non-agricultural activities upto ₹10 lakh.
Loans are divided into three categories — Shishu (loans up to ₹50,000); Kishore (loans from ₹50,001 to ₹5 lakh) and Tarun (loans from ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh).