With the Lok Sabha polls only months away, the government Monday announced a Rs.200 crore venture capital fund to promote Dalit entrepreneurs.
The Industrial Finance Corp of India will set up the fund that will provide concessional finance to entrepreneurs from the community, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said.
"I propose to provide an initial capital of Rs.200 crore, which can be supplemented," said the minister, while presenting the interim budget for fiscal 2014-15.
He said Rs.48,638 crore had been allocated for the Scheduled Castes sub-plan and Rs.30,726 crore for the tribal sub-plan, and any shortfall could be addressed when the regular budget was presented.
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The finance ministry also announced adding Rs.100 crore to the India Inclusive Innovation Fund to help small and medium entrepreneurs.
The fund is being set up by the National Innovation Council and the ministry of small and medium enterprises and has a corpus of Rs.500 crore.