Daily Times

The government has so far disbursed around one billion rupees among the female entrepreneurs, qualified under the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES) of Kamyab Jawan Programme (KJP).

Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Youth Affairs Muhammad Usman Dar confirmed that the amount, out of the total disbursement amounting to Rs8 billion under YES, was distributed among over 1,000 qualified women entrepreneurs. He said the YES was launched in October 2019 under the banner of the Kamyab Jawan Programme to provide the youth soft loans for the initiation of their own businesses.

An amount of Rs 25 billion was allocated to the women exclusively under the programme, he added. The SAPM urged the women to come forward and take benefit of the Kamyab Jawan Programme which was launched with an aim to uplift the youth of Pakistan without any discrimination on the basis of gender and political affiliation.

He said the youth bulge was being transformed into employment creators through the successful execution of the KJP, which was set to become the ‘biggest’ engine for job creation in the country. “At least 10,000 young people have been succeeded to open their own businesses after obtaining soft loans under the Kamyab Jawan Programme. A total of about 70,000 jobs have been created so far through the disbursement of Rs8 billion under its Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES),” he maintained.

He said at the moment, the soft loan scheme had three tiers. Under tier-1, the loan limit was from Rs100,000 to Rs1 million, whereas tier-2’s loan limit was from above Rs1 million and up to Rs10 million and under tier-3, the loan limit was from above Rs10 million and up to Rs25 million, he added. He said for tier-1 loans, there was no need to provide any security to banks as one could get the loan on the basis of his talent. At least four thousand shops had been opened in different localities under this tier, he added.

For tier-1 loans, he said the markup rate was 3 per cent, while the markup rate for tier-2 loans was 4 percent, and for tier-3, the markup rate was 5 percent. Usman Dar said the government was planning to add another tier of Rs 100,000 to Rs 500,000 as most of the applications were received for this type of loans under the YES.

He said after the addition of a new tier, the loan from Rs 100,000 to Rs 500,000 would be given at village and union council levels in the first category, while the amount of the soft loan would be increased from Rs one million to Rs two million under the second one. He added that the amount ranging from Rs two million to Rs 25 million would be given in the third category, while under the fourth category a loan of up to Rs 50 million would be given.

The special assistant said that the federal cabinet and the Economic Coordination Committee would hopefully green-lighted the proposed changes in the KJP in this budget.