Street vendors and hawkers can now avail Rs 10,000 loan scheme ‘AtmaNirbhar Nidhi’ through about 3.8 lakh common service centres (CSCs) spread across the country, the government’s digital and e-governance services arm CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd said on Wednesday. The Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi is fully funded by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs with the objectives to facilitate working capital loan up to Rs 10,000 for street vendors and hawkers.
The scheme will incentivise the vendors for regular repayments, and reward digital transactions. The scheme will help formalise the street vendors and open up new opportunities to this sector. CSCs will help vendors’ enrolment in the scheme. “Under this programme, urban street vendors will be eligible to avail a working capital loan of up to Rs 10,000 with tenure of one year and repaid in monthly instalments,” said Sanjay Kumar, joint secretary under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, in a statement. He added that for this loan, no collateral will be taken by the lending institutions. “All vendors need to do digital transactions. They will get a cashback offer.”
SIDBI is the implementing agency for the scheme and till date, two lakh applications have been received by the government under the scheme and loans to 50,000 vendors have been approved, Kumar said. “CSCs can do a wonderful job in taking care of the vendor community under this scheme. We will also help banks provide loans to these small vendors. “Digital financial transaction is also our objective. Enabling the vendor for applying loan and digital transaction will be done by CSCs,” CSC e-Governance Services CEO Dinesh Tyagi said.
Street vendors in possession of certificate of vending or identity card issued by urban local bodies and those who have been identified in the survey but have not been issued certificate of vending or ID card are eligible to apply for loan under the scheme. “The scheme will help formalise the street vendors with above objectives and will open up new opportunities to this sector to move up the economic ladder. CSCs will help vendors’ enrolment in the scheme,” the statement said.
