Sidbi intends to raise Rs 10,000 crore corpus for ‘Stand Up India Fund’ from the Reserve Bank of India. The fund will be used to finance Dalit and women entrepreneurs. Sidbi’s CMD Kshatrapati Shivaji said the bank is working to have the corpus in place for the Stand Up India Fund corpus. It will be raised from the Reserve Bank of India through the priority sector lending shortfalls, he added. He said the corpus will be used to refinance loans extended by the banks to the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and women entrepreneurs as part of the ‘Stand Up India’ scheme announced by the government earlier this year. Shivaji said the groundwork for the implementation of the scheme has already started. Under the scheme announced by prime minister Narendra Modi earlier this year, each bank branch has been mandated to lend to one micro-enterprise promoted by a woman and SC/ST entrepreneur. Shivaji said plans are also afoot to have a credit guarantee fund for such loans, wherein the entrepreneurs can pay a premium which will help her/him to get a cover in case of a loan default.
