FINMIN TIES UP WITH ETAILERS FOR MUDRA

Mumbai, May 23: The finance ministry has joined hands with over two dozen e- commerce firms, including major players like Amazon, Flipkart, Ola and Uber, to provide easy finance to small entrepreneurs under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana ( PMMY), a top government official said.

The three way partnership between lenders, industry and the government aims to facilitate small business loans.

PMMY is a flagship scheme of the government to provide loans of up to ` 10 lakh to small entrepreneurs. The loans are being given by banks, small finance banks, NBFCs and micro finance institutions.

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

“There are companies like Ola, Flipkart, Uber, dabbawalas, cable operators, Zomato, which have several small entrepreneurs as partners who require loans. We want to extend support to them under the Mudra scheme,” financial services secretary Rajiv Kumar told reporters here on Wednesday.

“The bank looks for good entrepreneurs, the companies look for supporting their partners and we are just trying to connect these dots,” he added.

Other companies participating in the scheme include MakeMyTrip, Oyo, Meru Cab, Big Basket, Carz on Rent, Habib Salon, among others.

In the financial year 2017- 18, the government had extended ` 2.53 lakh crore credit under the Mudra scheme, taking the total credit extended to the small and medium sized businesses in the last three years to ` 5.73 lakh crore.