NEW DELHI: The Government of India signed a USD 100 million loan agreement with World Bank on Tuesday, here in the National Capital Region.
The loan agreement is expected to promote rural enterprises, facilitate their access to finance, and create employment opportunities for youth, particularly women, in selected blocks of Tamil Nadu across 26 districts, directly benefiting over 400,000 people.
However, to promote businesses across select value chains, the Tamil Nadu Rural Transformation Project will create an enabling environment for producer organizations and enterprises.
This project will support building an ecosystem that will provide business development services to entrepreneurs in rural and semi-urban areas for promoting rural enterprises and creating employment opportunities.
It will specifically target at least 60 percent women entrepreneurs from the Self-Help Groups (SHG) network in Tamil Nadu who have the potential to move into the next level of economic integration.
Further, the project will be operational in 120 blocks across 3,994 villages in 26 Districts of Tamil Nadu with 411,620 direct beneficiaries.
It will work with targeted households that are already part of SHGs.
An e-governance architecture with the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) along with a robust Management Information System (MIS) will help monitor and track results real time.
USD 100 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development has a five-year grace period, and a maturity of 19 years.