Prime Minister Narendra Modi today launched Micro Units Development Re-finance Agency, MUDRA in New Delhi. The Prime Minister said, the MUDRA bank, with a corpus of Rs 20,000 crore, will provide credit of up to Rs 10 lakh to small entrepreneurs and act as a regulator for Micro-Finance Institutions MFIs to promote their growth. Mr Modi said, it is a step in the right direction of funding the unfunded. He also said that, if the government will give a little help to those who generate this employment then a big change can be brought in the country.
Endorsing the small entrepreneurs, Prime Minister Modi said, while big industrial houses provide jobs to only 1.25 core people, the small entrepreneurs give employment to 12 crore people and the government can not afford to ignore them.
The Bank will provide institutional finance to 5.77 crore small business units in the country to achieve higher GDP and generate employment opportunities.The government had proposed this scheme in the budget, with a corpus of Rs 20,000 crore and credit guarantee corpus of Rs 3,000 crore.
The roles envisaged for MUDRA include laying down policy guidelines for micro-enterprise financing business and registration of MFI entities, as well as their accreditation and rating. MUDRA Bank is set up through a statutory enactment and will be responsible for developing and refinancing through a Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana. Since the enactment for MUDRA is likely to take some time, it is proposed to initiate MUDRA as a unit of SIDBI to benefit from its initiatives and expertises. The bank will also partner with states and regional level coordinators to provide finance to last mile financiers of small and micro business enterprises.