The government has disbursed more than 40 lakh loans totalling Rs 4,606.36 crore in value over the past two years under the PM SVANidhi scheme.
Over 45 lakh beneficiaries, across two tranches, benefitted from it, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs said in a release.
Speaking at the 12th edition of the National Street Food Festival on Friday, Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep S. Puri said the scheme has garnered a positive response from street vendors across the country and has become one of the fastest-growing micro-credit schemes.
In June 2020, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) launched PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme to facilitate collateral-free working capital loans upto Rs 10,000 of one-year tenure to street vendors to restart their businesses, which were adversely impacted during the pandemic.
It provides incentives in the form of interest subsidy at 7 per cent per annum on regular repayment of loans and a cash-back of upto Rs 100 per month on undertaking prescribed digital transactions. Further, on timely or early repayment, the vendors are eligible for an enhanced working capital loan of Rs 20,000 and Rs 50,000, respectively.
"I am glad to say that so far, street vendors have recorded 37.70 crore digital transactions to the tune of more than Rs 45,000 crore. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has released Rs. 23.02 crore as cashback to the beneficiaries to promote the use of digital transactions," Puri said.
The scheme also facilitates the onboarding of beneficiary street food vendors to e-commerce platforms to serve their customers online.
Talking about the tie-up with food delivery platforms, the minister highlighted that PM SVANidhi had enabled the onboarding of 9,326 street vendors on food delivery platforms such as Swiggy and Zomato.
As of January 9, 2023, total sales worth Rs 21.93 crore have occurred on these platforms, the ministry's release said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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