Banks have sanctioned loans of about Rs 1.77 lakh crore to 44.2 lakh business units under the Rs three lakh crore Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for the MSME sector.
However, disbursement against the sanctioned amount stood at Rs 1,25,425 crore to 25.74 lakh MSME units till 21 September 2020.
The scheme is the biggest fiscal component of the Rs 20 lakh crore Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in May 2020 to mitigate the distress caused by the lockdown due to COVID-19 by providing credit to different sectors, especially micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
The latest numbers on ECLGS, as released by the Finance Ministry, comprise disbursements by all 12 public sector banks (PSBs), 24 private sector banks and 31 non-banking financial companies (NBFCs).
The ambit of the scheme was expanded to include MSMEs with a turnover of up to Rs 250 crore and individuals for business purposes in August 2020 and included certain individual loans given to professionals like doctors, lawyers and chartered accountants for business purposes under its ambit.
As of 21 September 2020, Rs 9,849.74 crore of loans to 2.8 lakh individuals have been sanctioned, of which Rs 2,617.08 crore has been disbursed to 49,393 professionals.
To include more companies to take benefit of the scheme, the Finance Ministry increased the upper ceiling of the loan outstanding as on 29 February 2020 for being eligible under the scheme from Rs 25 crore to Rs 50 crore.
The maximum amount of guaranteed emergency credit line (GECL) funding under the scheme was also correspondingly increased from Rs five crore to Rs 10 crore.
Compared to 3 September 2020, there is an increase of Rs 16,335.32 crore in the cumulative amount of loans sanctioned and an increase of Rs 11,711.85 crore in the cumulative amount of loans disbursed by both #PSBs and private sector banks combined as on 21 September 2020.
The State Bank of India (SBI) has sanctioned Rs 24,632 crore of loans and disbursed Rs 19,748 crore. It is followed by the Punjab National Bank with a sanctioned amount of Rs 10,677 crore.
On 20 May 2020, the Union Cabinet approved additional funding of up to Rs three lakh crore at a concessional rate of 9.25 percent through ECLGS for the MSME sector.
Under the scheme, 100 percent guarantee coverage will be provided by the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC) for additional funding of up to Rs three lakh crore to eligible MSMEs and interested Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) borrowers in the form of a guaranteed emergency credit line (GECL) facility.
For this purpose, a corpus of Rs 41,600 crore was set up by the government, spread over FY21 and FY22, FY23, FY24.
The scheme will be applicable to all loans sanctioned under the GECL facility during the period from the date of announcement of the scheme to 31 October 2020 or till the amount of Rs three lakh crore is sanctioned under GECL, whichever is earlier.
