MUDRA (Micro Units Development and Refinancing Agency) encourages development of micro units.
In order fulfill the mandate of "Stand-up India" Scheme, Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) developed a web-portal "www.Standupmitra.In," its CMD Kshatrapati Shivaji said today.
It has been designed to enable registrations, accept application forms for financial assistance, provide links for hand holding on different aspects, tracking and monitoring of applications, he said at the 18th Annual General Meeting of SIDBI here.
Startups play an important role in the overall growth of any economy, he noted.
To help startups, which mainly fall in the SME category, SIDBI created a Rs 2,000-crore "India Aspiration Fund" (IAF) to be utilised as a Fund of Funds for making investments in Venture Capital Funds which would, in turn, make investments in MSMEs to the extent of twice the commitment of SIDBI or 50 per cent of the corpus of the VCF, whichever is more, he said.
Its assistance to micro finance institutions has an aggregated Rs 10,769 crore.
SIDBI's microfinance support has benefited around 345 lakh disadvantaged people, most of them women, in terms of improved quality of life, improved social security, asset status and improvement in health and education parameters, he said.
The CMD mentioned that the Bank's balance sheet size increased by 25.7 per cent to Rs 76,478 crore and the outstanding increased by 18.6 per cent to Rs 65,632 crore as on March 31, 2016.
