It’s been a year full of historic feats for Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) in executing the flagship Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Program (PMEGP). With setting up of an unprecedented 1.03 lakh new manufacturing and service units and creation of over 8.25 lakh jobs, PMEGP has emerged as government’s most powerful tool of self-sustainability in the year 2021-22, even as the country was under partial lockdown for the first 3 months of the year during the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic.

This is for the first time since the launch of the PMEGP Scheme in 2008, that KVIC has established over one lakh new units in a financial year. These 1,03,219 units have been established at a total capital of nearly Rs 12,000 crore out of which KVIC disbursed a margin money subsidy of Rs 2978 crore while the bank credit flow was nearly Rs 9,000 crore. The margin money subsidy of Rs 2978 crore given by KVIC in the year 2021-22 is also the highest since 2008. A whopping 8,25,752 new employment were created across the country, which is also the highest so far under PMEGP.

As compared to the previous year, i.e. 2020-21, the number of units and employment created under PMEGP has gone up by 39% each, while the margin money distribution (subsidy) has also witnessed a jump of 36% in FY 2021-22.

In the larger perspective, the number of units set up under PMEGP since 2014-15 has increased by 114%, employment creation has gone up by 131% and the margin money distribution has seen a quantum jump of 165% in the year 2021-22.

KVIC Chairman Shri Vinai Kumar Saxena attributed this quantum jump in employment creation to the Prime Minister’s push for local manufacturing to achieve self-reliance. “This big thrust to local manufacturing and self-employment in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic has done wonders. A large number of youths, women and migrants were prompted to take up self-employment activities under PMEGP. Further, a slew of policy decisions taken by the Ministry of MSME and KVIC to expedite the execution of projects under PMEGP helped KVIC achieve its best ever performance,” Saxena said.

KVIC, in recent years, has taken a number of initiatives for effective implementation of PMEGP. In 2016, KVIC introduced an online portal for PMEGP. Before 2016, filing of applications was done manually and on an average only 70,000 applications were received annually. But, with the online portal in place, an average of nearly 4 lakh applications are received every year. The online system has brought in greater transparency. PMEGP portal enables the applicants to track their applications without any human intervention.

In another major step, KVIC has also begun geo-tagging of all PMEGP units so as to verify the actual physical status of the units and their performance at any point of time. So far, more than 1 lakh PMEGP units have been geo-tagged. This also enables any person to locate the PMEGP units using a mobile app.

Further, the Ministry of MSME, based on the inputs provided by KVIC, removed the role of the District Level Task Force Committee in approving the PMEGP projects and authorized state directors of KVIC for approval of projects and directly send it to the financing banks.

KVIC also reduced the timeframe for scrutinizing and forwarding the applications to the banks by its state directors from 90 days to just 26 days. Further, monthly coordination meetings with the banks were started at different levels which, too, has resulted in timely disbursement of loans to the beneficiaries.

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MJPS