Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project, Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency (MUDRA), has disbursed over Rs 42,000 crore in the five months of this financial year. This is one fourth of its annual target of Rs 1,80,000 crore.

The lending agency’s disbursals nearly doubled in the last two months to about Rs 27,000 crore from the Rs 15,000 crore it disbursed in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.

“Monsoons have been very good and we anticipate credit to pick up in the second half,” Jiji Mammen, MD of MUDRA, said.

“Also, with the upcoming festive and harvest season, things should look much better.” Mudra has so far disbursed loans over Rs 1.3 lakh crore to 35 million borrowers. 35% of the total loans sanctioned last year were disbursed by MFIs. Among 45% of total loans disbursed by PSUs, 20% was disbursed by SBI alone while 23% was disbursed by private banks.

Of the planned disbursement of Rs 1.8 lakh crore this fiscal year, public sector banks would disburse Rs 77,700 crore, followed by Rs 21,000 crore by private and foreign banks, Rs 15,000 crore by regional rural banks andRs 64,240 by MFIs.

MUDRA was established as a subsidiary of Small Industries Development Bank of India by Modi in April this year. The agency was set up with an initial corpus of Rs 5,000 crore to provide capital to all banks seeking refinancing of small business loans under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojna.

There are three types of loans under the scheme: Shishu (loans up to Rs 50, 000), Kishore (Rs 50, 000 to Rs 5 lakh) and Tarun (Rs 500,000 to Rs 10,00,000).

Source: Times of India