Q.State the objectives of the Stand-Up India scheme.

Ordinary bank lending does not always reach entrepreneurs from every social background equally, and Stand-Up India was designed specifically to correct that gap for two identified groups.

Stand-Up India, launched on 5 April 2016, was framed around a specific gap: Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and women entrepreneurs were, and often still are, under-represented among bank borrowers for new business ventures, partly for lack of collateral or credit history. The scheme's objectives follow directly from closing that gap.

First, to ensure guaranteed access to bank credit by requiring every scheduled commercial bank branch to facilitate at least one loan to at least one SC/ST borrower and at least one woman borrower, so that access does not depend on the discretion of an individual branch.

Second, to fund loans in the ₹10 lakh to ₹1 crore range — large enough to set up a genuine enterprise rather than only a micro-loan-sized activity.

Third, to restrict the loan to a greenfield enterprise, ensuring the scheme creates new economic activity (new manufacturing, services, or trading ventures) rather than simply refinancing an existing business.

Fourth, and more broadly, to promote entrepreneurship among under-represented groups as a route to their economic empowerment, employment generation, and inclusive industrial growth.

Students sometimes state that Stand-Up India funds any type of business loan; it specifically funds greenfield (new) enterprises, not expansion of an existing business. Another mistake is reversing or omitting one of the two mandated borrower categories — the scheme requires at least one SC/ST borrower AND at least one woman borrower per branch, not either-or.