Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday said the government has sanctioned 15.56 lakh loans amounting Rs 7.23 lakh crore under the Mudra scheme of which an overwhelming majority were woman beneficiaries.

Presenting the Budget for 2019-20 in the Lok Sabha, Goyal said more than 70 per cent of Mudra yojna beneficiaries were women. Moreover, he said the Narenadra Modi-led government has also taken several steps to empower women, including the Pradhan Mantri Matritva Yojana and providing 26 weeks of maternity leave.

Under the Mudra scheme, the government has sanctioned 15.56 lakh loans amounting Rs 7.23 lakh crore, he added.

Terming Ujjwala Yojana providing free cooking gas connection as a "remarkable success story", Goyal said out of 8 crore free LPG connections under Ujjwala, 6 crore connections to poor women have already been provided.

The finance minister also said gratuity limit has been increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 30 lakh. Commenting on India's growing clout in entrepreneurship, he said India has become the second largest hub of startups. Highlighting the ease of doing business, he said Rs 1 crore loan can now be obtained under 59 minutes.

Over 1 crore youths have been trained under skill training programmes of the government, he added. On infrastructure, he said the country now has 100 operational airports and passenger traffic has doubled in the last five years.

India is the fastest highways developer in the world with 27 km of highways built each day, he said. Projects stuck for decades have been completed and project such as Sagarmala will help faster handling of import and export cars, he said.

Goyal also said Indian Railways has witnessed its safest year in history and all unmanned crossings on broad gauge network have been eliminated. He also said National Artificial Intelligence Portal will be developed soon and nine priority areas have been identified.