Textiles Minister Smriti Irani said on Wednesday that women entrepreneurs are the major beneficiaries of the Centre’s Mudra scheme. This is because women have cornered about 75 per cent of the total disbursals.

She said through policy interventions, the Central Government is ensuring that more and more women would join the organised sector.

The Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) is a flagship scheme of the government to provide loans of up to Rs 10 lakh to small entrepreneurs. The loans are being given by banks, small finance banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and microfinance institutions.

The scheme aims to strengthen forward and backward linkages for robust value chains anchored by industries, aggregators, franchisors and associations.

The minister said there are 14 crore loans that have been processed. “Of these, 75 per cent have gone to female entrepreneurs. That speaks a lot about the latent entrepreneurial talent of Indian women and that is where the key lies for exponential growth,” the minister said.

She was speaking at the Raisina Dialogue 2019 here.

Irani added that in the textiles sector, about 70-75 per cent of the workforce are women. She also said that people from the industry have realised more people would stay longer in a company as well as learn and enhance their skills if the girls are assured of a residence and education.

Regarding the delay in the passage of the Women Reservation Bill in Parliament, the minister stated, “We have time and again said that all political parties need to come to the forefront and help us pass this bill, that is an offer we have made time and again, we have not found many takers.”

The bill was passed during the UPA rule in the Rajya Sabha in March 2010, but could not be passed in the Lok Sabha.

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