SBI providing seed capital to SMEs for budding entrepreneurs.

Good news for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). State Bank of India is providing seed capital upto Rs.10 lakhs to budding entrepreneurs. What is so special? Here is the speciality:

• The seed capital is interest free
• You can repay the seed capital in 5 year

This is a good opportunity for the aspiring entrepreneurs to start their ventures. So, walk up to your nearby SBI and get more information on the requirements to avail this seed capital.

I know many bright entrepreneurs looking out for funds and finding it difficult in this economic downturn, to get loans or finance. Either they are asked to pledge their properties or the rate of interest is too high to make it viable to borrow.

So avail this opportunity. Who knows - in the next election, the parties will announce writing off this seed capital also!!

Below is the news article, which appeared in the Economic Times today.

Cheers,
Gopal
*******************************************************************

NEW DELHI: State Bank of India (SBI) will provide interest-free seed capital of up to Rs 10 lakh to aspiring entreprenuers under a new scheme, SBI SMILE, which is specially targeted to encourage small and medium enterprises in the country.

The scheme will be in place initially for one year, after which the bank could extend it, if the situation warrants.

“Given the economic downturn, some entrepreneurs have not been unable to raise any capital. The scheme will provide them a platform to kick-start their businesses,” said BS Bhasin, chief general manager, SME, at the country’s largest lender.

Currently, banks give loans to the entrepreneurs, only if they have a substantial capital to invest. The loan amount is around 70-80% of the total project cost. Under the new scheme, SBI will provide the seed capital and entrepreneur will also be able to seek a loan. Loan terms and interest rates will be determined as per the existing guidelines. “There will be no interest on the seed capital. You can pay that amount after you’ve serviced your loan,” Mr Bhasin said.

The bank will offer a five-year moratorium on paying the seed capital amount.

The bank, however, has not set any target for the amount it will disburse under the scheme. Already, SBI has SME loans of Rs 1,00,000 crore outstanding on its account books.

As per the central bank guidelines, a bank can give up to Rs 10 crore as loan to a medium enterprises for investment in plant and machinery.

Other banks are not impressed with the scheme. “This is another gimmick. The bank is flush with liquidity and hence this scheme. Otherwise how would you explain that SBI has lowered the target from 29% to 25% for the current fiscal,” said a senior official with a Mumbai-based private sector bank.

Earlier, the banking regulator RBI had expressed concerns over a slowdown in lending to SME sector. It had extended a special refinance scheme of $1.4 billion to Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to enable it to lend to banks and financial institutions towards incremental SME loans.

Continue Reading...

Go Green.....Gardening & Oraganic vegetables at home

Today, I was chatting with my colleagues in the cafetaria. To my surprise, I found that most of them are interested in organic foods, growing vegetables in their places. One has already attended a course on organic forming, conducted by a foreign NGO.
The topic started over a cup of tea. They asked me why I take green tea and which is the good brand. My interest level in the dicussion went up, inspite of the people cheering Shewag for his half century. I started expalaining what a Green Tea and how it differs from the normal tea.

Slowly, the topic changed and one of my colleagues mentioned that he attended a day long training program on organic farming, preparation of organic manure at home. What was interesting is that there were many participants in their early 30s, who attended and shared their experiences in growing vegetables in their terraces. The more interesting part is that they are all techies, working in MNCs. They are getting good vegetables at their home and when in excess, share the same with their neighbours. The vegetable inflation has not bothered them and they are smiling at the inflation.

When I started saying that I am growing Tomato, Mint, Palak, Ladiesfinger, Onion, Lemongrass, Wheatgrass apart from the flowing plants in my balcony, they disengaged themselves from the cricket match and started listening to me.

Lot of ideas came out during the discussion, on balcony and terrace gardening and preparation of manure for the plants at home, without any chemicals.

Will share the growing of some good plants inthe balcony in the coming posts.

Let us go Green, plant our own vegetables, save the economy and improve our health.

Cheers,
Gopal

Continue Reading...

Wheat Grass - Natural healthy food

I was discussing this with my colleague, who is also getting into the wheat grass world, on growing the grass at home.

 

Not many know that we can grow and have juice of wheat grass. Why suddenly wheat grass?

 

Yes, of late if you visit any restauarants of thematic nature, they serve you Wheat Grass juice? What is so special about it?

 

It has:

• Chlorophyll,
• beta carotene,
• more than 80 minerals,
• 18 amino acids
• Vitamins - C, E, B12
• Iron
• Calcium

Research has shown that 1 kg of wheatgrass matches the nutritional value of 22 kg of ordinary garden vegetables.

 

Wheatgrass is generally consumed as juice which is a complete food with regenerative and protective qualities. Its regular use

• improves perception and increases mental and emotional calmness.
• aids in digestion,
• prevents graying of hair,
• prevents skin diseases,
• prevents asthma, arthritis and diabetes
• helps in detoxification of heavy metal from the body.

In fact, because of its blood purifying qualities, wheatgrass is used in the treatment of leukemia and some other forms of cancer.

 

The normal dosage of wheatgrass juice is 25 to 50 gm twice a day on an empty stomach. The average dosage taken by consumers of wheatgrass is 3.5 grams (powder or tablets).

 

Some also have a fresh-squeezed 30 ml shot once daily or for more therapeutic benefits a higher dose up to 2–4 oz (60 - 120 ml) taken 1-3 times per day on an empty stomach and before meals. For detoxification, some users may increase their intake to 3–4 times per day.

 

It can be extracted from wheatgrass in a juicer. One problem with the grass is that it cannot be stored and has to be consumed immediately.

 

You can chew the wheatgrass and discard the pulp.

 

Sounds interesting....yes...more interesting is that you need not have space to grow this grass. Let me tell you how to grow this grass in the next post. I have grown this in my apartment and it is very easy to maintain.

 

The above details are sourced from various websites relating to wheatgrass.

 

Cheers,

Gopal

Continue Reading...

Constructive feedbacks !!

Friends,

It is really nice to get feedbacks and if you are open-minded, you will get more suggestions. I had many suggestions during the course of this one year of my blogging:

1. 
   
   Write the blogs in a masked name
2. 
   
   Write on something which is of recent happening
3. 
   
   Write on the recent economic situations
4. 
   
   Write on Stock market basics
5. 
   
   Write on certain financial jargons (to make life easy)

I tried my best to take note of these suggestions and impelemented the same.

Recently, one of my well wishers (my name sake), suggested to write on simple topics which is of importance to everyone! Sounded resonable to me. I took the advise of my friend to write in a masked name (refer 1 above) and am writing there, venting out my feelings and thoughts on the day to day matters. Now, for some of the general matters, I can write in this blog itself. I have created a separate tag called "Random" meaning random thoughts - Ranging from Health, Sports, Job Market etc.,!

Thanks to all for giving me the feedback and suggestions - Keep suggesting me.

Am feeling happy that I am being a consultant on blog designing to a 5th person ! (The funniest part is I am not a tech person :-D )

Cheers,
Gopal

Continue Reading...

Budget - 2010, expectations

Friends,

It is budget time again. What to expect from the Finance Minister?

Tax proposals:

• Stimulus to continue
• More tax benefits
• Deductions
• Increase Basic exemption limit
• Increase the gratuity limit
• Increase the medical reimbursement limit (from Rs.15,000)
• Reduction in tax rates
• Short term capital gains
• Personal tax slabs to be widened
• Controlling the inflation by tax sops to industries

The above are just to kindle the interest and may I request you to get the list ready, so that we can see where we are against the budget!

Plan outlay

How he is going to fix the situation? I mean, the fiscal deficit. It is widening.

Also, we need to see how the previous budget vs. the actual situation is.

Look forward to your views.

Cheers,
Gopal

Continue Reading...

NTPC - FPO

The NTPC Follow on Public Offere was fully subscribed (overall -1.2 times and the retail sector 0.25 times) - Thanks to LIC and SBI for pitching in to save the dignity of this issue. While the below average issues are over-subscribed, the fundamentally strong issue like NTPC is not even subscribed by the public. Why? Let me share my thoughts on the same and would like others also to share their views.

(1) French auction method

Under this method the highest bidders get a priority on allotment. This is useful when the current market price is much more than the offer price. Here the offer price was Rs.201 and the market price was Rs.205. Who will buy in the issue, block the funds. If the market falls, they may get even below Rs.200! Government failed to understand this.

(2) The Government holding was offered and they could have given at a lower price to the retail investors. This also, contributed for the failure. Probably, they thought that people will be mad to get these shares.

(3) If the market price and the offer price are very close, investors will get attracted, if the stocks are not that liquid (not widely traded in volumes) in the market. Here, NTPC was traded widely.

(4) If they are not really looking at the retail sector, then they could have directly placed the shares with LIC & SBI. This would have saved the issue cost and saved the government from this embarassment.

So, what is the fun in this FPO - NOTHING. With the other FPOs - REC & NMDC in the offing in Feb 2010, they would have learnt the lesson with the NTPC issue.

I solicit your views on this.

Cheers and Happy Weekend,

Gopal

Continue Reading...