PM’s programme: Rs30b loans provided to youth, Abbasi told

Loan amount includes Rs10 billion given out without interest

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has provided loans worth more than Rs30 billion, including Rs10 billion interest-free for the borderline poor, as part of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme.

These figures were shared with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi during a briefing on Monday by the programme’s management.

According to the PM’s office, Abbasi was briefed that loans worth Rs22 billion have so far been disbursed among the educated and skilled youth under the business loan scheme of the youth programme to promote entrepreneurship in the country.



An official PM office statement said, “These young entrepreneurs are not only running their own businesses successfully but are also providing employment to number of other youths around them. The 91% recovery rate of the scheme, the highest in SME (small and medium enterprises) sector financing, speaks of its success”.

Moreover, a total of Rs9.5 billion worth of interest-free loans have been given out across the country to the most underprivileged. Statistically, 64% of the loan beneficiaries are females while a 99% recovery rate was also recorded.

Apart from issuing loans, the PM’s Youth Programme also focuses on skills development and around 100,000 unemployed youth have been trained in several demand-driven vocational skills across the country.

Focusing on education, the PM’s reimbursement scheme has also paid the educational expenses of more than 227,000 university students. Also through the PM’s Youth Laptop Scheme, more than 300,000 laptops have been distributed among talented university students whereas another 200,000 laptops will be distributed by the end of the year.



Talking about the youth programme, Prime Minister Abbasi said, “The youth programme, initiated in 2013, is reflective of the priorities of the PML-N government to help the youth in becoming the most productive asset of society and thus enabling them to contribute towards overall socio-economic development of the country,”

Chairperson of Prime Minister’s Youth Programme Leila Khan said, ”The programme is a successful initiative of the PML-N government for the socio-economic development of youth as overall beneficiaries under its six schemes are over 1.1 million now.”