Traders welcome PM's Mudra scheme in Jamshedpur

JAMSHEDPUR: The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the national outfit of non-corporate traders, have welcomed the Pradhan Mantri Mudra (Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency) Yojna, two days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially launches the programme on Wednesday.
CAIT, which has been demanding a separate system for small traders for obtaining easy finance for business purposes, praised Union finance minister, Arun Jaitely for introducing Mudra in the 2015-16 general budget.
"With the purpose to achieve the new system (like Mudra bank) CAIT had formed an 'Action Committee For Formal Finance for Non Corporate Small Business' that conducted a scientific research to arrive at the merits of adopting the new system. The findings of the report were submitted to over six different ministries for their consideration," said Suresh Sonthalia, CAIT's zonal functionary.
The action committee of CAIT comprises leading associations of transporters, truck operators, hawkers and other sections from the non-corporate sector.
The Mudra bank, which will begin functioning this month with an initial corpus of Rs 20,000 crore, will help create good infrastructure for last mile credit delivery to micro businesses under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojna.
"Mudra will also be responsible for formulating and running a credit guarantee to the loans which are being extended to micro enterprises," said Sonthalia.
Underlining the significance of Mudra in the present context, Bharat Vasani, functionary of Singhbhum Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) said that there are 5.77 crore small business units, mostly individual proprietorships, which run small manufacturing, trading or service activities.
"Presently, only four percent of these 'own account enterprises' get institutional finance. With the introduction of Mudra bank, it will become easier to provide institutional finance to a vast section of small business units," said Vasani.