Government launches PM SVANIDHI scheme to provide affordable loan to street vendors

To provide affordable loan to street vendors, the Union Government today launched PM SVANIDHI - Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor's Atmanirbhar Nidhi - a special micro-credit facility scheme. The scheme is aimed at enabling the street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to COVID-19 lockdown.

Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry launched the scheme in pursuance of the announcement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last month. Street vendors play a significant role in ensuring the availability of the goods and services at affordable rates at the door-step of the city dwellers.

The scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh street vendors, who had been vending on or before March 24, 2020, in urban areas. The duration of the scheme is until March 2022. The street vendors belonging to the surrounding peri-urban or rural areas are being included as beneficiaries under the urban livelihoods programme for the first time.

The vendors can avail a working capital loan of up to Rs 10,000, which is repayable in monthly instalments in the tenure of one year. On timely and early repayment of the loan, an interest subsidy at the rate of seven per cent per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer on six monthly bases.

The Ministry said, if the vendor will repay the instalments in time or earlier, they will develop the credible credit score that makes him eligible for a higher amount of term loan to Rs 20 thousand and so on. Urban Local Bodies will play a pivotal role in the implementation of the scheme. The lending institutions under the Scheme include Scheduled Commercial Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Small Finance Banks, Cooperative Banks, NBFCs, Micro Finance institutions and Self Help Group banks.

In order to ensure fast implementation of the scheme with transparency, a digital platform with a web portal and mobile app is being developed to administer the scheme with an end-to-end solution. The IT platform will also help in integrating the vendors into the formal financial system.