Awareness camps about State Government schemes would be conducted at the block levels to spread the information at the grass root levels, G. Sundaramurthi, Industries Commissioner and Director of Industries and Commerce, said.
“We are already conducting awareness programmes at district levels and now they would be taken to all the blocks,” he said. Mr. Sundaramurthi was addressing the State-Level workshop on Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) here on Thursday by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC).
He also urged the bankers not to make beneficiaries run from pillar-to-post for sanctioning of loans. He urged the beneficiaries to interact freely with the government officials and bankers during this workshop and air both grievances and praises.
Speaking about PMEGP, he said that it was intended to uplift people in the lower strata of the society with particular emphasis on rural areas. Madurai district had already exceeded the target for the current financial with still three more months remaining.
In a message read out on the occasion, A.K. Dwivedi, Director (PMEGP), said that the target for margin money for present year is Rs. 740 crore, in addition to which in last year around Rs. 335 crore was unutilised. The total sum of Rs. 1,075 crore would be utilised this year, he said.
He also said that relaxation in rules of entrepreneurship development training programme has been brought about to ensure the entire sum is utilised.
M.T. Wakode, Director, KVIC Madurai Division, said that this credit linked subsidy scheme of PMEGP was formed by merging the two schemes that were in operation till March 2008, namely the Prime Minister's Rojgar Yojana (PMRY) and Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP).Madurai Region has been
performing well under this scheme and constituted the lions' share of disbursal, he said.
Later, the Industries Commissioner also gave away prizes for five banks, which also constituted 86 per cent of the total subsidy given to beneficiaries. The State Bank of India ranked first having disbursed Rs. 91
lakh and generating employment to 764 beneficiaries.
A.P. Mothak, Assistant Director, KVIC, V.G. Kanthimathi, convenor of State-level Bankers Committee, and S. Suhumaran, Revenue Divisional Officer, also took part in the workshop.
