Credit guarantee fund for IT sect in offing: IT secy

NEW DELHI: IT Ministry is in the process of finalising recommendations for establishing a credit guarantee fund, a move which is expected to ease credit flows to information technology start-ups.
"We are in the process of finalising recommendations on setting up a credit guarantee fund for IT start-ups", IT Secretary K K Jaswal said at Pravasi Bhartiya conference here on Saturday.
He said the fund to patterned on the lines of the SME fund was expected to be in place within a years time.
Declining to give details about the corpus of the proposed fund, Jaswal admitted bank financing was a problem area for the sector as bankers were reluctant to lend in the absence of collateral guarantees.
Jaswal said the education and research network (ERNET) established to provide IT connectivity to education institutes would soon be extended to cover agricultural universities.

He said the recent cuts in tariffs for hardware industry would give a fillip to the sector.
On industry trends, he hoped the growth registered by sector during first two quarters would be improved upon.