ECLGS to be extended till March 2023, guarantee cover increased: FM in Budget 2022

The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during her fourth Budget speech for the financial year 2022-2023 on Tuesday announced that the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) to support micro, small and medium enterprises will be extended till March 2023 and the guaranteed cover has also been extended by another Rs 50,000 crore.

Sitharaman also added that the total cover under scheme will now be Rs 5 lakh crore, with an additional amount earmarked for hospitality sector.

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The extension comes in the backdrop of government receiving demands from various industry bodies and other stakeholders to extend the scheme to ensure continued support to eligible sectors/businesses.

Earlier last year, the validity of the scheme has been extended by another six months till March 31, 2022. 

The scheme since its launch in May last year has extended relief to over 1.15 crore MSMEs and businesses, it said, adding it has provided support to eligible borrowers in meeting their operational liabilities and restarting their businesses in the wake of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sitharaman, who in her maiden Budget presentation in 2019 shunned the long-standing practice of carrying the speech and Budget document in a briefcase in favour of a 'bahi-khata' holding the papers, used a handheld tablet to read her speech on the last occasion on February 1, 2021.