Over 25 Lakh Loan Applications Received Under PM-SVANidhi Scheme For Street Vendors: Govt

More than 25 lakh applications have been received under the Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s Atma-Nirbhar Nidhi (PM-SVANidhi), a Special micro-credit facility scheme, out of which more than 12 lakh have been sanctioned and about 5.35 lakh loans disbursed, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) said on Wednesday (18 November).

Under the scheme, vendors who had left for their native places due to Covid-19 lock down are eligible for the loan on their return.

In Uttar Pradesh, more than 6.5 lakh applications have been received, out of which about 3.27 lakh have been sanctioned and 1.87 lakh loans have been disbursed. The stamp duty has been exempted for the loan agreement of SVANidhi Yojana in UP, the statement said.

The ministry said that the provision of loans has become hassle-free as one can upload the application online on their own at any common service centre or municipal office or by going to a bank.

Banks are reaching the doorsteps of people to provide loans for helping them start their ventures, it added.

The ministry said that the urban local bodies are playing pivotal role in the implementation of the scheme. They are leveraging the network of all stakeholders including street vendor’s associations, business correspondents (BCs), bank agents, micro-finance institutions, self-help groups (SHGs) and their federations. Besides, digital payment aggregators like BHIM, PayTM, GooglePay, BharatPay, AmazonPay, PhonePe etc are also playing an important role in the scheme's implementation.

In order to ensure fast implementation of the scheme with transparency, accountability and consistency, a digital platform with web portal and mobile app has been developed to administer the scheme with end-to-end solution, it said.

The IT platform integrates the web portal and mobile app with UdyamiMitra portal of SIDBI for credit management and PAiSA portal of MoHUA to administer interest subsidy automatically.

The scheme incentivises digital transactions i.e. receipts and payments using digital means like UPI, QR-codes of payment aggregators, RuPay debit cards etc. by the street vendors through monthly cash back.

The ministry further said that most of the street vendors who were given loan through the SVANidhi scheme are repaying their loan on time proving that small-time borrowers do not compromise on their honesty and sincerity.