Banks in India have sanctioned working capital loans of Rs 75,426 under the Rs 3-lakh-crore Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for MSMEs and Rs 32,895 crore have already been disbursed. The scheme, under which the government offers full guarantee on up to 20% additional and collateral-free working capital loans, was rolled out from 1 June to help the MSMEs impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said loans of Rs 42,739 crore were sanctioned by public sector banks and Rs 32,687 crore by private banks. Of these sanctioned amounts, public sector banks have already disbursed Rs 22,198 crore and private banks Rs 10,697 crore. ECLGS was a major policy decision of the government as part of its Rs 21-lakh-crore relief package to help individuals and businesses tide over the impact of the pandemic. The government has earmarked a corpus of Rs 41,600 crore over the current and the next 3 financial years to implement this loan guarantee scheme.
