GRDC approves Rs 100 million for crisis-hit 100 SMEs

The Grants Review and Distribution Committee (GRDC) of the Economic Revitalization of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA (ERKF) Project has approved matching grants to tune of Rs 100 million in head rehabilitation and upgradation for the crisis-hit SMEs in 23 districts of the province.
ERKF Project funded by Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) for the rehabilitation and upgradation of SMEs of KP and FATA had received nearly 4000 applications for grants under the project during the period from July to till first week of October 2017. The approved amount will be distributed amongst 100 applicants.
SMEs from all terrorism and calamity hit districts of the province, particularly from Malakand division have submitted applications with the Project Unit (PU) of the project established under the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA).
According to official sources largest number of applications has been received from Lower Dir followed by Swat and Chitral respectively. Women Entrepreneurs are also taking keen interest in the project and over 200 women have also applied for availing the grant. Grants to the SMEs will be given under the heads of rehabilitation, upgradation and cluster. Maximum amount under rehabilitation is up to Rs 2.5 million, upgradation up to Rs 2 million and Rs 10 million under common facilitation centre (CFC) for cluster development.
For maintenance and guaranteeing of transparency in the grants distribution a special MIS system has been adopted under which each case is being processed without any discrimination. Two different committees namely Documentation Review Committee (DRC) and Grants Review and Decision Committee (GRMC) have been established for processing cases.
The first committee reviews the documents and present cases in the second committee, which has representation from both public and private sector. The second committee after thorough scrutiny take decision with majority vote.
Under the first round of the project, grants to the tune of Rs 1.5 billion have been distributed in 1700 SMEs of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. For the second round an amount of Rs 1.2 billion has been sanctioned for SMEs from both KP and FATA. However, presently, the second round is initiated only for the SMEs of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while project for FATA is yet to start due to some reasons.