New Delhi

Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) launched by the government in 2020 to provide relief to MSMEs impacted by COVID-19 pandemic has saved 13.5 lakh firms from going bankrupt and consequently 1.5 crore jobs, claimed a report.

The scheme is the biggest fiscal component of the Rs 20-lakh crore Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in May 2020, to mitigate the distress caused by the COVID-19-induced lockdown by providing credit to different sectors, especially MSMEs.

“We estimate almost 13.5 lakh micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) accounts were saved due to ECLGS (including restructured). Almost 93.7 per cent of such accounts are in the micro and small category,” SBI Research said in a report.

In absolute terms, the report claimed MSME loan accounts worth Rs 1.8 lakh crore were saved from slipping into NPA during the period and this is equivalent to 14 per cent of the outstanding MSME credit being saved from becoming NPA.

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