Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Wednesday disbursed ₹16.36 crore towards reimbursement of interest paid by 4,50,546 small and petty vendors on loans availed by them between November 2020 and September 2021, under the Jagananna Thodu scheme.
On the occasion, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said the scheme was aimed at providing working capital to petty businessmen and artisans, who usually approach private parties for loans and often fall into debt traps.
He said a total of 9,05,458 beneficiaries had availed interest-free loans worth ₹905 crore in two spells under the scheme. Almost 5.35 lakh people took loans in November 2020 and another 3.70 lakh in June 2021.
The Chief Minister said financial assistance under the scheme would henceforth be disbursed twice a year, and appealed to the beneficiaries to repay their loans on time to avoid overdues and the loans turning into NPAs for banks. About 5% of the loans taken under the scheme had tuned NPAs and 11% overdues.
Energy Minister B. Srinivasa Reddy, Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma, Special Chief Secretaries Ajay Jain (village and ward secretariats) and K. Sunitha (social welfare), SERP CEO A.Md. Imtiaz, MEPMA MD Vijayalakshmi, State-Level Bankers’ Committee convener Brahmananda Reddy, and Sthreenidhi MD Nancharaiah were present.
