We love fudge.

"As India's Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) completed eight years on 8 April," "Data as on 24 March 2023 puts the scheme's cumulative disbursed amount at Rs 22.65 trillion," wrote Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic advisor, State Bank of India, which is a government bank. "The Centre's data possibly also includes loans given in normal course of business that are being classified under PMMY, a howindialives.com analysis suggests." Mint. "The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data shows that banks lent between Rs 1.19 trillion and Rs 1.76 trillion a year in under Rs 10 lakh (Rs 1 million) loans from 2017-18 and 2021-22. The split between PMMY and non-PMMY loans is not stated. Even in 2013-14, before PMMY, banks gave about Rs 1 trillion in new loans below Rs 10 lakhs." Is this a case of deliberate double counting, in which the same figure may be counted more than once in the final tally? Economics Discussion. "MUDRA is short for Micro Units Development Refinance Agency Ltd, which provides refinancing to institutions, which further use it to provide loans under PMMY to borrowers who might not be otherwise eligible. Between 2015-16 and 2021-22, MUDRA provided total refinance of Rs 53,050 crore (Rs 530.50 billion) - a fraction of the Rs 23.2 trillions of loans cited under PMMY." Reminds us about the maths in calculating the GDP back series in 2018, which showed that the economy has performed better under the current government than under the previous Congress-led UPA government. HT. MUDRA provides 3 types of loans: Shishu: for loans up to Rs 50,000, Kishore: Rs 50-500,000 and Tarun: Rs 500,000-1 million. MUDRA has benefited all social groups including Scheduled Castes/Tribes (SC/ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), women and minorities, wrote Ghosh. But, only 9% of Tarun, the largest, loans went to women and just 4% of Tarun loans went to SC/ST. "India's current government has a somewhat difficult relationship with data. Various surveys and calculations, from the national income accounts to household consumption patterns and jobs data, have been cancelled or reviewed," wrote Mihir Sharma. The government is silent about the vitally important national census which was due in 2021. There was "A 58 million increase in jobs between calendar year 2019 and calendar year 2022. Jobs for women increased by 28 million or by 25%...jobs for men increased by 30 million...or 8.4%," exulted eminent economist Surjit S Bhalla & Tirthatanmoy Das. The same figures were analysed by Prof Radhicka who finds that a lot of the so-called employment includes subsidiary status (SS) workers, which means low-paid work for 30 days or more in the preceding 365 days, or unpaid own account workers (OAW) and unpaid family helpers (UFH). It's all hot fudge. We love it. Victory assured.