UPSC CSE Current Affairs — 25 June 2026

Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY), launched on April 8, 2015, completes 11 years in 2026. It provides collateral-free loans up to ₹20 lakh to non-corporate, non-farm micro and small enterprises through three tiers: Shishu (up to ₹50,000), Kishore (₹50,001–₹5 lakh), and Tarun (₹5–₹10 lakh). A new Tarun Plus category (₹10–₹20 lakh) was added in Budget 2024. Cumulative sanctions exceed ₹33 lakh crore across over 52 crore loan accounts since inception.

PMMY addresses a structural gap in Indian credit markets: the near-total exclusion of micro-entrepreneurs — street vendors, artisans, small traders, women self-help groups — from formal banking. Before 2015, these borrowers relied on informal moneylenders charging usurious rates. MUDRA (Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency) was created as the refinancing backbone; it refinances banks, MFIs, NBFCs, and RRBs that disburse on-ground loans.

The three-tier architecture mirrors enterprise lifecycle: Shishu targets startups and subsistence entrepreneurs; Kishore targets those seeking to expand; Tarun targets established micro-businesses needing growth capital. The 2024 Budget's Tarun Plus (₹10–₹20 lakh) explicitly rewards good repayment track records, nudging credit discipline.

From a GS3 perspective, PMMY intersects multiple themes: financial inclusion, employment generation, women's economic empowerment (roughly 68% of beneficiaries are women), and formalisation of the informal economy. Critics flag asset quality concerns — MUDRA NPAs have been a subject of Parliamentary scrutiny — and question whether low-ticket loans genuinely create sustainable enterprises versus debt traps for the vulnerable. The scheme also plugs into JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) infrastructure, making it a case study in leveraging digital public infrastructure for credit delivery. For UPSC GS3, the analytical angle is: inclusive credit architecture vs. NPA risk vs. livelihood outcomes.

MoSPI will launch the Index of Services Production (ISP) in July 2026 to provide monthly data on India's formal services sector growth. Currently, India lacks a high-frequency services output index, unlike manufacturing which has the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The ISP aims to fill this critical data gap, covering sectors like IT, finance, trade, and transport, enabling better GDP nowcasting, policy formulation, and timely economic monitoring by RBI and government planners.

India's services sector contributes approximately 55–57% of GDP and employs hundreds of millions, yet policymakers have historically lacked a timely, monthly output tracker for it. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP), released monthly by MoSPI, tracks manufacturing, mining, and electricity — but services have no equivalent. This means RBI's monetary policy committee, finance ministry budget planners, and international institutions like IMF rely on quarterly GDP estimates or proxy indicators like PMI Services (a private survey) to gauge services momentum. The ISP changes this fundamentally. By compiling output data from formal services enterprises monthly, it will allow 'nowcasting' — estimating current-quarter GDP before official figures arrive. This is especially significant because India's services-led growth model means manufacturing-centric IIP often understates economic momentum. For UPSC, the ISP fits squarely into GS3 themes: national income measurement, data governance, statistical infrastructure, and economic survey discussions. Examiners can link ISP to the Base Year revision debate (currently 2011-12), the shift to enterprise surveys, and India's compliance with IMF data standards (SDDS Plus). The ISP also has federal implications — state-level services data could eventually inform devolution and GSDP calculations, connecting to Finance Commission methodology.