The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) on Monday said it had achieved more than 100 per cent target under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) in 2016-17.
While in 2008-09 the utilisation of the total subsidy allotted by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) for implementation of PMEGP was less than 50 per cent, it crossed the 100 per cent mark, at 100.37 per cent, in 2016-17. “The credit for this success goes to KVIC”, said VK Saxena, Chairman, in a statement here.
The Ministry of MSME had set a target of ₹1,100 crore for PMEGP in 2016-17, which KVIC achieved by March 15. Later, the Ministry added another ₹100 crore to the target, which also was achieved by March 25. Again, ₹50 crore was added, but KVIC’s overall achievement crossed that, too, with an annual figure of ₹1,281 crore in 2016-17.
Nearly four lakh new employments were generated, with an estimated project cost of ₹4,800 crore, a growth of approximately 24 per cent with respect to financial year 2015-16, he said, citing an independent study conducted by a national-level agency, Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurugram.
After physical verification of 10,044 PMEGP units (five per cent of the total units) across the country and collecting data from beneficiaries, stakeholders and external sources, the study said the average employment per project was 7.66 persons, with an average cost of ₹94,855 for generating unit employment and an average cost per project of ₹7,26,760.
“The maximum and minimum costs for generating unit employment were ₹2,65,412 (Nagaland) and ₹25,070 (Tamil Nadu),” the report added.
The average age of the beneficiaries was 36.8 years, and 42.39 per cent of them were from SC, ST or OBC categories, besides 5.8 per cent of minorities and 10 per cent women.
While the majority of the beneficiaries (79.53 per cent) reported that their products/services were consumed only domestically, among the rural beneficiaries, the percentage was slightly higher (9.56 per cent) than their urban counterparts (5.84 per cent).
Saxena said the Central government had also taken cognizance of the success rate of the KVIC in the implementation of PMEGP. “In the recent Budget, we have got ₹1,800 crore compared with ₹1,024 crore in 2017-18, which is 78 per cent growth.”