To encourage budding and existing entrepreneurs from Scheduled Castes, the Government on Friday launched a scheme under which members of the reserved community will be offered concessional finance to start new business ventures. The scheme ‘Venture Capital Fund for Scheduled Castes’ was launched by Union Social Justice Minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot in Delhi.
“The new initiative, with an initial capital of Rs200 crore, would help people belonging to the SC categories in a big way,” said Gehlot. Highlighting the efforts by the NDA Government to uplift SC and OBC people, he noted that a chunk of the working sections were poor in the country. Responding to a query on the new scheme launched in the wake of the Election Commission declaring polls to Delhi, he said necessary permission for launching the scheme was obtained from the poll panel.
Social Justice and Empowerment secretary Sudhir Bhargava said that about 30 persons a year would benefit from this scheme, wherein each can avail loans up to Rs15 crore. “Initially, our target is 30 persons a year, while the sealing is up to Rs15 crore,” he said.