Government Schemes
The Government of India launched the ‘Stand Up India’ scheme to promote entrepreneurship at grassroots level for economic empowerment of SCs/STs and women beneficiaries. Under this scheme, bank loans of ₹10 lakh to ₹1 crore are provided to Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) and women borrowers for setting up a greenfield enterprise.
The MUDRA loan aims to boost the confidence of aspiring youth to become first generation entrepreneurs and facilitate existing small businesses to expand their activities. The Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) was launched by the Prime Minister of India on 8 Apr 2015 to boost finance to micro enterprises rapidly. The main objective of this scheme is to “fund the unfunded” by bringing such enterprises into the formal financial system and extending affordable credit to them. This segment mainly consists of non-farm enterprises engaged in manufacturing, trading, and services whose credit needs are below ₹10 lakh.
The Kisan Credit Card (KCC)The Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme was introduced in 1998 for issuing of Kisan Credit Cards to farmers on the basis of their holdings so that farmers may use them to readily purchase agriculture inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides etc. and draw cash for their production needs.
The Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) Scheme was introduced by Government of India with the following objectives:
- To generate employment opportunities in rural and urban areas of the country by setting up new self-employment ventures/projects/micro enterprises.
- To bring together widely dispersed traditional artisans / rural and urban unemployed youth and give them self-employment opportunities to the extent possible, at their place.
- To provide continuous and sustainable employment to a large segment of traditional and prospective artisans and rural and urban unemployed youth in the country, to help arrest migration of rural youth to urban areas.
- To increase the wage earning capacity of artisans and contribute to increase in the growth rate of rural and urban employment.
The Ministry of Finance, Government of India, rolled out Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY). Scheme and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) from 1 June 2015. Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) Scheme offers life insurance worth 2 lakh at ₹330 per annum premium while Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) offers accident insurance worth 2 lakh at 12 per annum premium.
The Ministry of Finance,Government of India, has launched Atal Pension Yojana (APY) on 9 May 2015.The scheme is a universal social security measure specially for the poor and the under-privileged, which will provide a defined pension, depending on the contribution, and its period to its subscribers. The APY is focused on all citizens in the unorganized sector who join the National Pension System (NPS) administered by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MOHUPA), Government of India, restructured the erstwhile Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) and launched the National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) in 2013. The Scheme is under implementation in all district headquarters (irrespective of population) and all the cities with population of 1 lakh or more. The Self Employment Program (SEP) of NULM focuses on providing financial assistance through provision of interest subsidy on loans to support establishment of individual and group enterprises and self-help groups (SHGs) of urban poor.
The former rural employment generation scheme - Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) - was merged under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) in 2013 and the scheme was further renamed as DAY-NRLM (Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural Livelihood Mission) w.e.f. 29 March 2016 and is the flagship program of the Govt. of India for promoting poverty reduction by building strong institutions for the poor, particularly women, and enabling these institutions to access a range of financial and livelihood services.
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana - Urban (PMAY-U), being implemented since June 2015, is one of the flagship programs of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MOHUA), Government of India, to provide all-weather pucca houses to all eligible beneficiaries in the urban areas of the country through States/UTs/Central Nodal Agencies. All houses under PMAY-U have basic amenities like toilet, water supply, electricity and kitchen.
