India signs $100 mn loan agreement for TN rural enterprises

New Delhi, Jan 30 : The Indian government on Tuesday signed a $100 million loan agreement with the World Bank to promote rural enterprises and create employment opportunities for youth, particularly women, across 26 districts of Tamil Nadu, an official statement said.

The agreement would facilitate the access rural enterprises to finance and would directly benefit over four lakh people, it said.

"The Tamil Nadu Rural Transformation Project will create an enabling environment for producer organisations and enterprises to promote businesses across select value chains.

"It will support building an ecosystem that will provide business development services to entrepreneurs in rural and semi-urban areas for promoting rural enterprises and creating employment opportunities," said the statement.

It added the project will specifically target at least 60 percent women entrepreneurs from the self-help group network in Tamil Nadu who have the potential to move into the next level of economic integration.

"The project will be operational in 120 blocks across 3,994 villages in 26 districts of Tamil Nadu with 411,620 direct beneficiaries," it said.