Union Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Bhagwat Karad took a meeting to review campaign to increase coverage of PM SVANidhi Yojana in Mumbai on December 5, 2022. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, Additional Commissioner Asheesh Sharma and Executive Directors of various banks attended the meeting at BMC headquarters, Mumbai.
To provide handholding support to street vendors, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) launched PM SVANidhi a micro credit scheme, facilitating a working capital collateral-free loan of ₹10,000, with subsequent loans of ₹20,000 and ₹50,000 with 7% interest subsidy.
Addressing the media persons after the meeting, the Minister of State of Finance informed that 24 centres have been set up in Mumbai under the guidance of BMC commissioner in order to spread awareness among street vendors about the scheme. “In the last review meeting held on November 3, 2022, we noticed that efforts to increase coverage of PM SVANidhi scheme in Mumbai need to be amplified. Till date, only 23,000 street vendors from Mumbai have been registered under the scheme, which is quite low for the city.”
The Union Minister further said that these centres will have bank representatives along with BMC officials who would reach out to small vendors in the vicinity and help them with the registration and loan process. “It has been noticed that due to lack of awareness, people do not approach banks for loans. PM SVANidhi scheme is a great initiative towards financial inclusion.”
Sharing the details of the scheme, the MoS, Finance said the PM SVANidhi scheme is based on the idea of ‘Antyoday se Sarvoday’, “Under this scheme, financial assistance of INR 10,000 is provided to registered vendors at very low interest rates. By providing financial support to the small vendors in the country, the Central Government wants to free them from the clutches of private money lenders”.
The Union Minister further said that the Ministry has set a target of 1.5 lakh registrations per month. “We have also simplified the process of registration and loan application for benefit of street vendors”.
What is PM SVANidhi scheme?
The scheme is a Central Sector Scheme i.e. fully funded by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs with the following objectives: (i) To facilitate working capital loan up to INR 10,000; (ii) To incentivize regular repayment; and (iii) To reward digital transactions. The scheme will help formalize the street vendors with above objectives and will open up new opportunities to this sector to move up the economic ladder.
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