Prime Minister today launched the PM Vishwakarma scheme.

PM Vishwakarma is a new scheme and envisages to provide end-to-end holistic support to the traditional artisans and craftspeople in scaling up of their conventional products and services. and will be applicable for five financial years, from 2023-24 to 2027-28. PM Vishwakarma will be funded entirely by the Centre with an outlay of Rs 13,000 crore.

The objectives of the scheme are as given below:

1. To enable the recognition of artisans and craftspeople as Vishwakarma making them eligible to avail all the benefits under the Scheme.

2. To provide skill upgradation to hone their skills and make relevant and suitable training opportunities available to them.

3. To provide support for better and modern tools to enhance their capability, productivity, and quality of products. The scheme also has a corpus of ₹250 crore for quality certification, branding, advertising, publicity and other marketing activities.

4. To provide the intended beneficiaries an easy access to collateral free credit and reduce the cost of credit by providing interest subvention ;up to Rs 1 lakh in the first tranche and up to Rs 2 lakh in the second tranche, at a concessional interest rate of 5 percent, beneficiaries will get ₹15,000 each as toolkit incentives through e-vouchers or eRUPI

5. To provide incentives for digital transaction to encourage the digital empowerment of these Vishwakarmas.

6. To provide a platform for brand promotion and market linkages to help them access.