Self-employment fund gets Rs 37-billion funding requests
KATHMANDU, OCT 16 -
The Youth and Small Entrepreneur Self-Employment Fund ( YSESEF ) has been overwhelmed with applications for funding totalling Rs 37 billion from cooperatives across the country. The YSESEF , which possesses total financial resources of Rs 4 billion, received applications from 1,311 cooperatives in response to its call for proposals.
As per its plan, it will provide funding to only 480 “excellent” cooperatives, two from each electoral constituency. The government has promised to provide each project up to Rs 200,000 through the YSESEF under the Youth Self-Employment Programme.
The YSESEF relaxed its regulation allowing cooperatives to utilise its funds to provide capital for youth self-employment enterprises after banks and financial institutions didn’t seem too keen on joining the programme.
“Our plan is that some exemplary work could take place for youth self-employment through good cooperatives in each electoral constituency,” said Binod Kumar Guragain, executive director of the YSESEF .
The YSESEF has started assessing the applications from cooperatives to choose the best one in a particular electoral constituency. It is also preparing to do a field study of the cooperatives. During the field visit, its team along with the chief district officer, district chambers of commerce and industry and district cooperative associations will study whether a particular cooperative has strength and credibility as mentioned in the application. They will also hire recognised auditors to examine the audit reports of the cooperatives.
The YSESEF plans to distribute resources to cooperatives based in nine remote districts in the beginning—Achham, Kalikot, Jajarkot, Jumla, Dolpa, Bajhang, Bajura, Mugu and Humla.
“Cooperatives from these districts will be selected and provided the necessary funds between the Dashain and Tihar festivals,” said Guragain. “We will complete distributing funds to cooperatives in other districts within the next two months.” He added that the remote districts had been given priority as the people in these districts were in greater need of employment given their poor economic status.
The YSESEF has not fixed any amount of funding for particular cooperatives. “The amount will be fixed based on the need and demand of the cooperatives concerned,” said Guragain.
With the government giving high priority to the Youth Self Employment Programme to create mass scale employment, the YSESEF has planned to go through cooperatives that are easy to work with.
The government has also directed three commercial banks with a significant government stake—Agricultural Development Bank, Rastriya Banijya Bank and Nepal Bank—to issue credit to ventures under the programme. ADBL has already started lending while other two have signed agreement with the YSESEF .
The programme is the brainchild of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, and it was launched four years ago when he was the finance minister during the tenure of the first UCPN (Maoist)-led government. Last year, the government announced that 50,000 jobs would be created through this mechanism, but the target was not met.
The YSESEF has provided Rs 790 million to banks and financial institutions as well as cooperatives to issue credit to projects under this programme. It said a total of Rs 430 million has been invested under the programme.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
