Kerala Government to Provide 300 Crore Loans to Women Entrepreneurs

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala State Women’s Development Corporation will provide loans worth 300 crore rupees to women to start their own enterprises, aiming to generate employment opportunities for 5 lakh women. In a Cabinet meeting held on Wednesday, the government approved additional guarantees for the corporation to enable it to avail loans from national financial institutions.

Until 2016, the corporation had received only 140 crore rupees in government guarantees. Since the LDF government came to power, an additional guarantee of 1,455.56 crore rupees has been granted. Under the current arrangement, loans will be availed from the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (200 crore rupees), the National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation (100 crore rupees), and other institutions. Through this mechanism, the corporation plans to disburse loans worth 375 crore rupees this year. Of this, 165 crore rupees will be allocated to minority women, expected to create 34,000 employment opportunities. For sanitation workers from economically backward backgrounds, 75 crore rupees of loan assistance will generate 12,000 jobs.

In the 2024–25 financial year, the corporation distributed 334 crore rupees to 31,795 women to start self-employment ventures. Government guarantees have helped create over 1,27,000 employment opportunities for minority women. Support has also been extended to 35,000 economically disadvantaged women who are sanitation workers to start self-employment ventures.

So far in the current financial year, 180 crore rupees have been distributed to 12,346 women, enabling over 1,00,000 people to generate their own income.