Rs 8,320-cr loan granted to MSMEs under ECL scheme

The Finance Ministry on Sunday said that public sector banks have disbursed Rs 8,320 crore till June 5 under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for the MSME sector. The Rs 3-lakh crore scheme is the biggest fiscal component of the Rs 20-lakh crore Self-Reliant India Mission package announced by Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman last month.

“As of 5 June 2020, #PSBs have sanctioned loans worth Rs 17,705.64 crore under the 100 per cent Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme, out of which Rs 8320.24 crore have been disbursed,” the minister said in a tweet. A corpus of Rs 41,600 crore was provided by the government for this scheme, spread over the current and next three financial years.

The main intention behind this scheme is to provide an incentive to member lending institutions to increase access and enable availability of additional funding facility to MSME borrowers. Under the scheme,  100% guarantee will be given for any losses suffered by them due to non-repayment of the GECL funding by borrowers. This has been done in view of the economic distress caused by the COVID-19 crisis. The sector is one of the most severe casualties of the economic damage caused by the sector.