Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), the principal financial institution engaged in the promotion, financing and development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), has announced a slew of additional support measures for MSMEs to strengthen the fight against Coronavirus. These measures are as follows:

• A new product SAFE(SIDBI Assistance to Facilitate Emergency response against Coronavirus)Plus has been introduced to provide emergency working capital against confirmed government orders, under which revolving working capital term loans shall be provided upto Rs.100 lakh. The loans will be without collateral properties and will be delivered within 48 hours. Besides that, this limit has been made uniformly applicable across the entire spectrum of MSMEs subject to such borrowers having government orders. The rate of interest would be a nominal 5%.
• In another major initiative, the limit of SAFE (SIDBI Assistance to Facilitate Emergency response against Coronavirus) loans which was launched few days back, has been enhanced from Rs.50 lakh to Rs.2 crore for executing government orders by those MSMEs which are eligible under the respective State Government’s special policy package for interest subsidy/subvention or capital subsidy.
• The list of products eligible for financing under SAFE and SAFE PLUS has been expanded from 21 products earlier to all medical products being procured by the respective State Government under the fight against COVID-19.
• SIDBI has also opened an additional financial window for healthcare sector under its flagship scheme called SMILE(SIDBI Make in India Soft Loan Fund for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises). Now, medium and long-dated loans under SMILE at attractive rates shall be provided.

Shri Mohammad Mustafa, IAS, Chairman and Managing Director of SIDBI said, “Being responsive is call of the hour and SIDBI shall continue making proactive efforts in strengthening the enterprise ecosystem. We can assure MSMEs that through ease of access to finance, we will isolate COVID-19 and strengthen nation’s resolve.”