The State government’s Unemployed Youth Employment Generation Programme (UYEGP), aimed at encouraging micro and small business ventures, has attracted a good response in Tiruchi district with over 600 ventures being promoted under the scheme over the past three years.
The scheme aims at extending credit to unemployed youth with 15 per cent subsidy of the project cost. While manufacturing units can get credit up to Rs. 5 lakh, projects in the service sector can get up to Rs. 3 lakh, and small businesses up to Rs. 1 lakh.
The UYEGP has met with a better response in the district, especially in comparison to the New Entrepreneur-cum-Enterprise Development Scheme (NEEDS), a high-end scheme for financing projects up to Rs. 1 crore.
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Since the educational qualification is just a pass in class 8, the UYEGP scheme has come as a boon for those who have not been able to pursue higher studies.
P. Priya, a Plus Two passed youth, had taken advantage of the scheme to pursue her family run small business of making snacks such as ‘murukku’, ‘athirasam’, and ‘boli.’
“My family was engaged in the business at home. I have now set up a unit, employing five women, to manufacture the snacks at a relatively bigger scale. I have put up a dough kneader/cutter using a loan of Rs. 4 lakh with a subsidy of Rs. 58,000. We are now supplying to various shops and sweet stalls in the city and nearby districts. We are getting more orders these days and I plan to expand the unit in the near future,” she said.
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The District Industries Centre, the implementing agency, had exceeded the target for the third consecutive year under the scheme. Against the annual physical target of 175 projects, 184 beneficiaries hade been extended credit under the scheme in 2011-12; 219 in 2012-13, and 216 in 2013-14.
Over the last three years, 606 persons have benefitted under the scheme availing over Rs. 10 crore as credit and Rs. 1.50 crore as subsidy, said A. Raja Rajan, general manager, District Industries Centre. Some of these projects were recommended by bankers themselves.
The district had performed reasonably well in the implementation of the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme under which projects up to Rs. 25 lakh in the manufacturing sector and Rs. 10 lakh under the services sector are financed.
Over the past three years, 77 beneficiaries had been extended credit to the tune of Rs. 4 crore with a subsidy component of Rs. 126 lakh, Mr. Raja Rajan added.