ERKF Project has so far approved 182 grants of Rs 125 million to the conflicted affected businesses in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and its adjacent tribal area. The Project has provided relief to SMEs belonging to Fata as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and many applications are in the pipeline.
Talking to media, Project Manager, ERKF, Sarmad H Khan said that the number of grants by the end of June 2013 will touch and exceed the targets in order to provide relief on emergency basis to affected businesses. It is worth mentioning that the Project has resulted in revival of Silk units of Swat and Marble industry of KP and Fata in addition to supporting other sectors including furniture, crafts, trading, etc.
The project is funded under MDTF grant of $20 million and will be executed by the World Bank through SMEDA, the Department of Industries, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata Secretariat. The SME Development component of the Project has an allocation of $14 million with a share of $9.1 million and $4.9 million for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, respectively. The SME Development component is being implemented by SMEDA and it has already started processing and grants are being disbursed to eligible SMEs. There are three subcomponents of the grant programme, viz: rehabilitation, up-gradation supports and capacity building & business development.
The rehabilitation component provides up to Rs 2.5 million to the eligible enterprises which may be used for reconstruction of basic infrastructure and acquiring, repairing machinery and equipment etc. The sub-component of the up-gradation provides up to Rs 1 million matching grants to SMEs for improving business productivity and efficiency. In case of groups a matching grant up to Rs 5 million is provided for cluster development programmes. The sub-component of capacity-building and business development provides up to Rs 300,000 for capacity building of SMEs in partnership with the Business Edge Programme of International Finance Corporation (IFC) and through procurement of business development services (BDS) required by the SMEs.