The Project Unit of the Economic Revitalisation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA (ERKF) project established under the auspices of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) has started sorting the application forms received from the SMEs of the erstwhile FATA for obtaining grants.
The Round-II of the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) funded project has received tremendous response from the SMEs. The Round-II of the project for the SMEs of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had already been completed. But, due to some administrative issues the phase for the tribal areas was delayed.
The project is being implemented under the supervision of the World Bank (WB) through the Industries Department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Small & Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA), a subsidiary organisation of the Ministry of Industries and Production.
In Round-I, a grant to the tone of Rs460 million was distributed in 400 SMEs. In Round-I, the applicants were nearly 3000. But, due to the success of the previous phase, this time 33000 more SMEs filed applications for the grant. A grant of Rs600 million is expected to be distributed under the prescribed policy of the project amongst the SMEs of FATA directly or indirectly affected either by the natural disaster or terrorism.
Under the Round-1, a huge amount of over Rs one billion has been distributed amongst the 1700 SMEs of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Beside, economic activities the project has also generated employment opportunities in the province.
Talking to this scribe, an official told that the objective of the distribution of grant in the crisis-hit SMEs is actually aimed to promote economic activities in the erstwhile FATA. The grant, he said is being provided on the criteria of first-come-first-served basis.
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