As many as 23.21 crore Indian women are the beneficiary of the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) account, the union finance ministry informed on Monday on the occasion of international women's day. The ministry added that in the past seven years, it launched various schemes such as Stand Up India, Mudra Yojana, among others, which have special provisions for empowerment of women.
The PMJDY was launched on August 28, 2015, which envisages universal access to banking facilities with at least one basic banking account for every household. There are a total of 41.93 crore beneficiaries of the PMJDY scheme and women account for 55.3 per cent of the total beneficiaries.
In another Centre's scheme called Stand Up India, more than 81 per cent of account holders are women. According to the union finance ministry, 91,109 women entrepreneurs have been sanctioned Rs 20,749 crore under the Stand Up India scheme.
On the other hand, under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY), 68 per cent, that is, 19.04 crore accounts with an amount of Rs 6.36 lakh crore were sanctioned to women until February 26, 2021. The Mudra scheme provides loans up to 10 lakh to non-corporate, non-farm small or micro-enterprises.
Stand Up India Scheme was launched on 5 April 2016 to promote entrepreneurship at the grass-root level.
The Stand Up India facilitates bank loans between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore to at least one Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) borrower and at least one-woman borrower per bank branch for setting up a Greenfield enterprise.
Separately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed women entrepreneurs of the country on Twitter on Monday. The PM wrote, "Women are playing a leading role in India's quest to become Aatmanirbhar. On International Women's Day, let us commit to encouraging entrepreneurship among women".
The PM also shared details of a range of products that "celebrate women enterprise and India's culture".
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