Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has said that the Jagananna Thodu scheme is aimed at benefitting the small and petty vendors, artisans from the unorganised sector by providing working capital and financial assistance to support their businesses.
The scheme has so far benefited 14.16 lakh people entailing an expenditure of ₹1,416 crore besides interest repayment of ₹32.5 crore.
Launching the third phase of Jagananna Thodu scheme, Mr. Jagan said an interest-free loan of ₹10,000 was provided to 5.10 lakh small and petty vendors at an expenditure of ₹510.46 crore and another ₹16.16 crore as interest reimbursement totaling ₹526.62 crore.
“Small scale vendors are essential service providers and the the government is relieving them from paying heavy interests, by facilitating loans from banks and upon timely repayment of loans, all the interest amount shall be reimbursed directly to the beneficiaries’ accounts, and further, they will be eligible to take the next loan,” said Mr. Jagan.
He said the scheme was being implemented twice a year, and urged the beneficiaries to repay their loans on time to avoid overdue and NPA, which could hamper the chances of availing themselves of fresh loans.
Further, the Chief Minister said that people who were left out could either contact the volunteers or visit village/ward secretariat to avail themselves of the scheme and can call 08912890525 to get their queries answered.
He said that 82% of the vendors across the country had lost their income due to COVID, but in the State, the government stood by the downtrodden communities and credited ₹1.29 lakh crore through DBT into the beneficiaries accounts without resorting to any sort of corruption.
With the measures taken by the State government, Andhra Pradesh stood in better place than other States in the country, as per the report given by Dun and Bradstreet Company.
Minister for Municipal and Urban Development Botsa Satyanarayana, Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma, Special Chief Secretary for Municipal and Urban Development Y. Srilakshmi, Special Chief Secretary for Housing Ajay Jain, Revenue department Special Chief Secretary Rajat Bhargava and other officials were present.
