Three Indian MSMEs will receive £4.2 million (Rs 42.38 crore) from the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) for expansion of their businesses, which are related directly or indirectly to the lives of poor people.
The companies receiving the UK Samridhi funds are Glocal Healthcare System (Rs 24.6 crore), Gramco Infratech (Rs 14.7 crore) and Shikhar Dairy (Rs 1.9 crore), according to the website of the Federation of Indian Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises (FISME).
Through the Rs 400 crore (£40m) Samridhi Fund, DFID will extend support to the businesses which directly affect the poor as producers, consumers or workers, over seven years, across eight low-income Indian states.
DFID, in association with the Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi), has envisaged the creation of the Samridhi Fund to provide capital to social enterprises that can deliver both financial and social returns, in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
The primary focus of the fund is to invest in the MSME sector and provide financial assistance to companies that have projects with a developmental impact. The fund, managed by Sidbi Venture Capital, is the first in India to focus on development projects in low-income states.
Glocal Healthcare System will use the money to operate a chain of affordable hospitals benefitting 1.2 million rural patients in low-income states by 2020; Gramco Infratech will build agricultural warehouses to provide storage and value added services to more than 3,000 farmers every season in MP; and Shikhar Dairy will set up a professionally managed dairy that will allow 300 landless rural poor to own cows and a dairy in the Jhansi district of UP.
Funding for three other businesses in India is being finalised and is to be announced shortly.
