Over 15 lakh applications had been received under the micro-credit scheme for street vendors, launched as part of the COVID-19-related economic package, of which 2 lakh loans had been disbursed, the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said on Thursday.
The PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi), which provides street-vendors with loans up to ₹10,000 to restart their work after the lockdown, had sanctioned 5.5 lakh loans since it was rolled out on July 2, the Ministry said.
“In order to expedite the loan sanctioning process and provide ease of operation to the lenders, it has been decided to push the applications directly to the bank branches, which have been indicated by the vendor as ‘preferred lender’ or where the vendor holds a savings bank account in case ‘preferred lender’ is not indicated. This process is expected to give boost to the number of loans sanctioned and cut down the time for loan disbursal drastically,” the Ministry said in a statement.
A software for processing the applications in such a way had been developed, and about 3 lakh applications would be sent to banks using it, the Ministry said. It has estimated that the scheme could benefit 50 lakh vendors.
