ISLAMABAD: The Finance Ministry has sanctioned a total amount of Rs 16,083 million for 15, 641 borrowers through the Prime Minister’s Youth Loan Scheme and has so far released Rs 5.366 billion to the applicants.
To this date, 10,442 loans have been extended under the scheme through two ballots (each ballot was for 16,000 loans). But not a single loan was granted to the martyrs or widows falling under category A for which five percent of total quota was fixed.
A well-placed official source at Finance Ministry told this scribe that the Finance Ministry had engaged a total of 11 commercial banks, including three public sector banks (NBP, First Women Bank and Sindh Bank) and eight private sector banks (Habib Bank, Habib Metropolitan, Bank Al-Habib, Summit Bank, Meezan Bank, Soneri Bank, Albaraka Bank and UBL), in this scheme.
Moreover, several other banks are also under preparation to join this scheme. As private banks have recently started operations under this scheme, a major share of financing is made by NBP and First Women Bank.
The source said that all the participating banks had received 63,011 applications. Out of total 63,011 applications received, 86 percent were submitted by male and 14 percent by female applicants.
An amount of Rs 0.245b has been sanctioned for special B-areas (ICT, FATA, GB, AJK) and this entire amount has been disbursed with full quota consumed.
Similarly, an amount of Rs 5.121b was sanctioned for C-areas (Punjab 46.05%, Sindh 21.85%, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 13, 01% and Balochistan 8.9%).
But provinces could utilise only a meagre percentage out of allotted quota, as Punjab 55%, Sindh 10%, KP 27% and Balochistan could utilise only 6% of its quota.
