In the Union Budget 2025, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a significant new initiative aimed at empowering women, Scheduled Castes (SC), and Scheduled Tribes (ST) entrepreneurs. As part of the NDA government’s continued focus on inclusive growth, the scheme will support first-time entrepreneurs from these communities with term loans of up to ₹2 crore over the next five years.
This new scheme draws inspiration from the successful Stand Up India initiative, which aimed to promote entrepreneurship among women and SC/ST communities. Sitharaman emphasized that this program will not only provide financial support but also offer capacity-building programs to enhance entrepreneurship and managerial skills through online training modules.
"A new scheme will be launched for 5 lakh women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes first-time entrepreneurs. This will provide term loans up to ₹2 crore over the next five years. The scheme will incorporate lessons from the successful Stand Up India scheme. Online capacity-building programs for entrepreneurship and managerial skills will also be organized..."From today's budget, India Inc. widely anticipates the government's measures on higher allocation towards boosting infrastructure, ease of doing business, artificial intelligence (AI) models, among others.. The Union cabinet approved the Budget ahead of the speech in Parliament at 11 am today (February 1, 2025).