Mudra yojana moves at a snail's pace in Odisha

Banks record measly 35% of the disbursal target as on December 31, 2015

The much hyped Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY), aimed to support micro and small business units, has failed to fetch desired results as banks in Odisha have recorded a low 35.37 per cent of the disbursal target as on December 31, 2015.

The PMMY, an initiative by the Union government to secure bank finance to the vast segment of the population occupied in the informal sector which does not have access to formal bank credit and is forced to rely on informal sources of finance at a high cost.

Banks in Odisha have disbursed only Rs 1,419.07 crore against the target of Rs 4,011.55 crore, through 282,719 accounts in the state as on December 2015.

While the public sector banks have clocked 48.65 per cent of the target of Rs 2,464.41 crore , the achievement by their private counterparts stood at Rs 37.09 per cent of the target of Rs 437.14 crore allotted to them.

The regional rural banks (RRBs)have achieved a measly 5.25 per cent of Rs 1,110 crore target allotted to disburse.

Mudra loans are meant for funding to the non-corporate, non-farm sector income generating activities of micro and small enterprises whose credit needs are below Rs 10 Lakh. PMMY loans fall into three categories, Shishu (upto Rs. 50,000), Kishore ( loans above Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh) and Tarun (above Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh).

In the Shishu category, Rs 404.42 crore has been disbursed to 245,509 beneficiaries. Similarly, the borrowings under the Kishore and Tarun categories stood at Rs 552.85 crore and Rs 462.80 crore respectively.

Banks in Odisha have already been requested by the State Level Banker's Committee (SLBC) to ensure the achievement of their target by March 31, 2016.

"Especially, the regional rural banks in the state have given a short shrift to the yojana. Over all the banks are also slow in disbursing the loans under the PMMY", said a bank official.

The government had set up Mudra (Micro Units Development Refinance Agency) with a corpus of about Rs 20,000 crore to refinance banks and MFIs (microfinance institutions) giving Mudra loans.