In news– Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) recently announced Mission 50K-EV4ECO to boost the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem in the country.
About the mission-
- The pilot phase of ‘Mission 50K-EV4ECO’ aims at strengthening the EV ecosystem, including uptake for two, three and four-wheelers through direct and indirect lending.
- The pilot scheme, which is the precursor to EVOLVE scheme by SIDBI-World Bank, has two components – direct lending(to MSME) and indirect lending(to NBFCs).
- This pilot scheme will be followed by scaling up support to the ecosystem from multilateral support.
- It focuses on increasing the uptake of electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers and four-wheelers through direct and indirect lending support to vehicle aggregators, fleet operators and leasing companies.
- Under Mission 50K-EV4ECO, SIDBI will directly provide loans to eligible small and medium enterprises (SME) for the purchase of EVs and developing charging infrastructure, including battery swapping.
Small Industries Development Bank of India(SIDBI)-
- SIDBI is the apex regulatory body for overall licensing and regulation of micro, small and medium enterprise finance companies in India.
- It is under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Finance , Government of India headquartered at Lucknow.
- The SIDBI was established on April 2, 1990, by Government of India, as a wholly owned subsidiary of IDBI Bank . It was delinked from IDBI w.e.f. March 27, 2000.
- Its purpose is to provide refinance facilities to banks and financial institutions and engage in term lending and working capital finance to industries, and serves as the principal financial institution in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector.
- SIDBI also coordinates the functions of institutions engaged in similar activities.
- SIDBI is one of the four All India Financial Institutions regulated and supervised by the Reserve Bank of India; other three are India Exim Bank, NABARD and NHB.
- But recently NHB came under government control by taking more than 51% stake.
- They play a statutory role in the financial markets through credit extension and refinancing operation activities and cater to the long-term financing needs of the industrial sector.
- In order to increase and support money supply to the MSE sector, it operates a refinance program known as Institutional Finance program.
- Under this program, SIDBI extends Term Loan assistance to Banks, Small Finance Banks and Non-Banking Financial Companies. Besides the refinance operations, SIDBI also lends directly to MSMEs.
Source: The Economic Times
