ISLAMABAD : The government has so far disbursed soft loans amounting to over Rs 260 million among 552 female entrepreneurs under the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES) of Prime Minister’s Kamyab Jawan Programme.

“It constitutes 30 per cent of the total disbursed loans which are amounting to one billion rupees. So far 2,190 qualified male and female entrepreneurs have received concessionary loans under the Kamyab Jawan Programme,” state-owned wire service reported, quoting a document.

Out of total disbursed loans, around 70 per cent of the soft loans went to 1,638 male candidates, who were given over Rs 690 million. The ‘YES’ was launched under the banner of Kamyab Jawan Programme in October last year with the seed allocation of Rs100 billion.

Special Assistant to PM on Youth Affairs Usman said in an interview that banks have so far approved two tier financing of Rs 3 billion for 7,592 eligible businesses. Out of the total approved loans, evaluation of 5,402 businesses is still underway, he added.

He said the Bank of Khyber (BoK), the Bank of Punjab (BoP) and the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), which deal with the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme, sanctioned Rs4 billion soft loans for 28,859 SMEs after scrutinising total 58,031, selected for carrying out the businesses’ analysis.

Out of 28,859 SMEs, he added, 14,664 had been rejected by the banks, whereas 6,489 were under processes.