Stand-Up India scheme allocates Rs.500 crore for SC ST and women

New Delhi, Feb.29 (ANI): Sharing his nine pillars for what he called a transformational budget for fiscal 2016-17, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday announced that under the Stand-Up India scheme, a sum of Rs.500 crores has been allocated to people belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC and ST) and women entrepreneurs.

The Startup India campaign is based on an action plan aimed at promoting bank financing for start-up ventures to boost entrepreneurship and encourage start ups with jobs creation.

The campaign was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this year's August 15 Independence Day address to the nation.

The campaign is focused on restricting the role of states in the policy domain and to get rid of the so-called "license raj", besides other hindrances like getting land permissions, foreign investment proposals and environmental clearances.

It was organized by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

A startup is an entity that is headquartered in India which was opened less than five years ago and has an annual turnover less than Rs.25 crore (USD3.7 million).

The government has already launched PMMY, the MUDRA Bank, a new institution set up for development and refinancing activities relating to micro units with a refinance Fund of Rs.200 billion (USD 2.9 billion).

The Standup India initiative is also aimed at promoting entrepreneurship among SCs/STs, women communities

He also announced that the government is launching a new initiative to provide cooking gas to below poverty line (BPL) families with state support.

The focus, he said, would be on rural spending, social schemes, infrastructure and banking recapitalization.