KNOW WHO HELPED IN DRAFTING OF MUDRA BANK

The launch of Mudra Bank by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Wednesday has Kanpur connection. As many as nine jewellers were invited by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to attend the launch of Mudra Bank. Mudra is a unit of SIDBI aimed at providing funds to small entrepreneurs or
traders.

The action committee which had been formed to advise the Prime Minister in formation of Mudra Bank had several constituent members from across the country, including Kanpur Mahanagar Sarafa Association. A group of ten traders from the city, under the banner of Kanpur Mahanagar Sarafa Association, were invited to come to Delhi for the launch of Mudra Bank for which nine traders attended. They came back on Thursday morning. 

Pankaj Arora, general secretary of Kanpur Mahanagar Sarafa Association, who attended the launch of Mudra Bank, told TOI that the association had played an important role in giving shape to a concept called Mudra. He said that the action committee which had been formed to suggest the Prime Minister for making Mudra Bank also had Sarafa Association as a vital member. "Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his budget speech, had declared about the launch of Mudra Bank by the Prime Minister on April 8. Kanpur Mahanagar Sarafa Association had been striving hard for past one year, asking the government to start a bank or a service which provides loans to traders/small industrialists for meeting their business needs as only large corporate sectors were entertained by the nationalised banks. Now this stands done which is a big relief to small traders like us," he said while explaining how Mudra Bank came into existence. 

Rajeev Agarwal, another jeweller who attended the programme, said that Mudra Bank will help to solve financial difficulties faced by small traders. 

Pankaj Arora, Rajeev Agarwal, Sharad Bajpai, Kamal Kumar Verma, Durga Kesharwani, Mukul Verma, Satyendra Verma, Ajay Tiwari and Alok Kaushik had attended launching of Mudra Bank at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on Wednesday. 

Mudra Bank has a corpus of Rs 20,000 crores and credit guarantee corpus of Rs 3,000 crores. It will act as a regulator for micro-finance institutions and responsible for providing loans to small entities.