ECLGS scheme extended till March 2023, guarantee cover expanded by ₹50,000 crore
Premium- Budget 2022: Guarantee cover for ECLGS will be expanded to a total of ₹5 lakh crore, said FM Sitharaman
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget 2022 speech announced that the ECLGS scheme will be extended till March 2023. Further, the guarantee cover for the scheme will be expanded by ₹50,000 crore to ₹5 lakh crore.
The ECLGS scheme extended till March 2023 will benefit business growth for MSME focused banks and Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs), said analysts at ICICI Securities.
In order to support Covid-hit MSMEs further, the government in September had announced an extension of its Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) till 31 March, 2022, or till guarantees for an amount of ₹4.5 lakh crore are issued under the scheme, whichever is earlier.
ECLGS is one of the key components of the ₹20 trillion economic stimulus package under the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’ announced in May last year that offers additional working capital finance in the form of a term loan to MSMEs and professionals. Initially, its corpus was ₹3 trillion, which was raised to ₹4.5 trillion in June after the second covid wave.
In an attempt to go green, the Union Budget for 2022-2023 was presented in a paperless format. Sitharaman read out the Budget at the Parliament through a tab, instead of the traditional 'bahi khata'.
Earlier today, Sitharaman met President Ram Nath Kovind ahead of the Budget presentation. She was accompanied by Ministers of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, Bhagwat Karad and other officials from the Ministry.
The Finance Minister unveiled the budget for fiscal 2022-23, to boost growth amid continued disruption from COVID-19 and rising inflation.
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