Summary:
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Underutilization of Norka Roots' ambitious NDPREM (Norka Department Project for Return Emigrants), a self-employment scheme for returnees, has goaded the government to raise the upper limit of project cost from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 30 lakh, for availing subsidized loans. "There are so many cases where the subsidy under sanctioned loans got rejected solely because the project cost exceeded the existing limit of Rs 20 lakh. The period witnessed sanctioning of 533 loans and release of Rs 6.45 crore as subsidy against 328 loans and release of Rs 3.54 crore during 2016-17. On the other hand, the annual budget allocation for the scheme has been witnessing a steady increase from Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 15 crore since its inception in 2012-13. "We have received around 175 applications till August this fiscal," the Norka CEO said.Though the government cites underutilization of the scheme against the allocation, the Norka officials point at a significant increase in utilization of funds during 2017-18 compared to previous fiscal..