Under the plan, parliamentarians can form a group of up to 25 jobless youths in their constituency and apply for funds to start a group business. If the business plan is approved, each youth will get Rs 200,000 of unsecured credit. [break]
“So far 99 parliamentarians have applied for loans since the program was launched a month ago,” an official of the fund told Republica, without revealing names of parliamentarians and the credit size that they have demanded.
He, however, informed none of the parliamentarians has been issued loans as the groups are yet to undergo training.
As per the rules of the fund, every borrower should take training on the business the individual or group is about to start prior to getting credit.
“Since most of the groups recommended by parliamentarians have proposed to start livestock and vegetable farming, they will be given training accordingly,” the official said.
The fund was established by the government of the UCPN (Maoist) three years ago as a vehicle to provide unsecured low-interest loans of up to Rs 200,000 to promote entrepreneurship among jobless youths. At that time, the fund had set an ambitious goal of providing self employment to 50,000 people. However, it has been able to extend loans of around Rs 350 million to around 3,300 people only since its formation.
To give a boost to its program, the fund had recently decentralized its service delivery system by deploying volunteers in all 75 districts. Major responsibilities of these volunteers are to coordinate with different chambers of commerce and locals to identify potential borrowers and sectors that can utilize the loans made available by the fund. However, because of the delay in the process of appointing them, the fund has not been able to make proper use of these volunteers.
“So far only 17 volunteers in central Nepal (which covers Bagmati, Narayani and Janakpur zones) have been given appointment letters,” the source said. “We were planning to provide appointment letters to volunteers of eastern and far western Nepal on Friday and June 15, respectively, but those events will most likely be postponed due to general strikes.”
Besides, the fund has also recently appointed Agricultural Development Bank Limited as one of its distributors. So far it has taken away Rs 300 million, of the Rs 1 billion it plans to disburse. But it also has not been able to make use of the fund.
“We hope the new approach of using parliamentarians to distribute loan amount will prove to be effective as many of them are in contact with jobless youths,” the official said.
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