Mudra Yojana: 25,000 Beneficiaries Added under Tarun Plus

New Delhi, Apr 7 (PTI) Lenders have added about 25,000 beneficiaries under the Tarun Plus category of PM Mudra Yojana (PMMY) in a 4-month short period of FY25 where borrowers were given enhanced loans up to Rs 20 lakh.

The scheme was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her last July Budget. As per the Budget 2024-25 announcement, loan limit was doubled to Rs 20 lakh for those entrepreneurs who have availed and successfully repaid previous loans under the 'Tarun' category.

Following the Budget announcement, the Tarun Plus scheme was notified on October 25, 2024.

As many as 24,557 new borrowers took loan under the Tarun Plus category amounting to Rs 3,790 crore in a short period of four months during FY25, Financial Services Secretary M Nagaraju told media while briefing about achievements of PMMY.

He further said that generally Rs 5-6 lakh crore loans are sanctioned under the scheme in a year of late.

The PMMY was launched on April 8, 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the goal of providing collateral-free institutional credit of up to Rs 20 lakh through Member Lending Institutions.

Since its inception of the scheme over 52.37 crore loans amounting to Rs 33.65 lakh crore have been sanctioned, with approximately 20 per cent of the loans to new entrepreneurs or accounts, he said.

Notably, he said, 68 per cent of the loans have been granted to women entrepreneurs and 50 per cent have gone to SC/ST/OBC borrowers.

The average loan size of the loans has gone up from Rs 40,000 to Rs 1.05 lakh, he said, adding that this is the biggest programme in the world with loans of this size.

Average Gross NPA under the scheme has been increasingly declining. It has come down to 2.21 per cent in FY24.

The PMMY focuses on the financial needs of all stakeholders, ranging from budding entrepreneurs to hardworking farmers, through various initiatives of the scheme. Under the PMMY, collateral-free loans of up to Rs 10 lakh are extended by member lending institutions (MLIs) viz scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks (RRBs), small finance banks (SFBs), non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), microfinance institutions (MFIs) etc.

The loans are given for income-generating activities in the manufacturing, trading and services sectors and activities allied to agriculture.

The scheme was launched to encourage small businesses, and banks were asked to provide collateral-free loans up to Rs 20 lakh under three categories -- Shishu (up to Rs 50,000), Kishore (between Rs 50,000 and Rs 5 lakh) and Tarun (Rs 20 lakh).