26 lakh loans for MSMEs through SIDBI’s loan marketplace Udyami Mitra

As of now, SIDBI's Udyami Mitra which is a universal portal aimed at easing access to various financial and nonfinancial services to MSMEs, as a one-stop portal has sanctioned over 26.31 lakh loans, in order to enable MSMEs to apply for loans under Mudra scheme, Standup India scheme for SC/ST and women entrepreneurs, PM SVANidhi apart from SME loans. 

Based on the data available on the platform, as of now a number of 411 lenders have been added to the portal, including non-banking financial companies, small finance banks, microfinance institutions, etc. The portal was lanuched on 2016, offering some other supplementary services, as well, such as: handholding support through a network of agencies engaged in application filling, report preparation, financial training, skill development, mentoring, entrepreneurship development programmes, subsidy schemes, etc.

Through Udyami Mitra, more than 92.27 lakh loan accounts were sanctioned only as of February 28, 2021, under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) which was launched last year. As per the data provided by Nitin Gadkari from NCGTC in a written reply to a separate question in the Rajya Sabha in March, the share of loans issued to micro borrowers was highest at 80.44 lakh; also, a sum of 4.26 lakh loans issued to small enterprises and 2.93 lakh issued to medium businesses.

Meanwhile, the gross bank credit deployment to micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in February 2021 stood at Rs 11.31 lakh crore, up 6.9 per cent from Rs 10.58 lakh crore deployed in February 2020, according to the April bulletin by the Reserve Bank of India. However, the share of MSEs in the overall gross bank credit had continued to decline. Out of Rs 95.69 lakh crore gross bank credit outstanding as of February 26, 2020, MSEs’ share stood at 11.8 per cent down from 12.09 per cent share in the overall Rs 94.97 lakh crore gross bank credit deployed in January 2021 and 12.11 per cent in December 2020. The RBI had earlier this month announced the extension of exemption by scheduled commercial banks to deduct credit disbursed to new MSME borrowers from their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) for calculation of the cash reserve ratio (CRR). Available for exposures up to Rs 25 lakh and for credit disbursed up to the fortnight ending October 1, 2021, the relaxation was extended till December 31, 2021, to ease credit flow to MSMEs.