New Delhi, The National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation has disbursed concessional credit to the tune of ₹2,347.15 crore during the last three years, thereby providing benefits to over 5.50 lakh eligible people from minority communities, the government informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
In a written reply to a question, Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the NMDFC eligibility criteria for the dissemination of concessional credit states that persons should belong to a notified national minority, specifically Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims, Parsis, and Sikhs, as defined by the National Commission for Minorities Act of 1992.
The eligibility also states that a person should be having an annual family income of up to ₹3 lakh under Credit Line-1 and up to ₹8 lakh under Credit Line-2, according to the minister.
Applicants are required to submit necessary documentation to substantiate their fulfilment of the aforementioned eligibility criteria, he said.
“There is a multi-level screening mechanism used by respective State Channelizing Agencies of NMDFC, encompassing document verification, background checks, and site inspections, to rigorously ascertain that credit support is effectively reaching genuine and deserving minority entrepreneurs,” he said.
Furthermore, the sanctioned amount is released through Direct Benefit Transfer directly into the KYC-authenticated accounts of the beneficiaries, Rijiju said.
The National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation has disbursed concessional credit to the tune of ₹2,347.15 crore during the last three years, thereby providing benefits to 5,50,939 beneficiaries from minority communities, he said.
The NMDFC regularly engages independent third-party agencies to conduct impact studies across the country, he said.
These studies are carried out to assess the impact of NMDFC’s schemes on targeted beneficiaries and evaluate the sustainability of projects and units financed under its loan programs, with respect to beneficiaries and units financed during the preceding two years.
As far as the NMDFC is concerned, it only implements schemes such as Term Loans, Micro Finance, Education Loans, and the Virasat Scheme to empower youth and women from minority communities by providing concessional loans for educational purposes and self-employment income generation ventures, Rijiju said.
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