Among lenders, State Bank of India had disbursed maximum applications 17.51 lakh followed by 5.95 lakh by Bank of Baroda, 5.82 lakh by Union Bank of India, 4.16 lakh by Punjab National Bank and 4.04 lakh by Canara Bank.
Loan scheme for street vendors: Micro credit scheme for street vendors PM SVANidhi — launched among post-Covid initiatives taken by the government for MSMEs — has crossed the 60-lakh-sanctioned-loan mark involving Rs 7,900 crore as of August 22, 2023. Out of sanctioned loans, 56.34 lakh loans involving Rs 7,349 crore were disbursed so far benefitting 42.42 lakh street vendors, according to the data from the scheme’s portal. Launched in June 2020, the scheme received 74.53 lakh applications so far.
PM SVANidhi was Introduced to protect the livelihood of street vendors post Covid and regulate street vending. Street vendors who run their informal micro enterprises — which are not registered with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) authorities – selling goods such as vegetables, fruits, ready-to-eat street food, tea, pan shops, etc., or services including barber shops, cobblers, etc, are eligible for formal credit under the scheme. Earlier valid till March 2022, the scheme was extended till December 2024 last year.
The scheme’s loan limit was increased last year up to Rs 50,000 in the third tranche on timely repayment of up to Rs 20,000 loan in the second tranche. Similarly, the eligibility for the second tranche is also based on the timely repayment of up to Rs 10,000 in the first tranche.
The first tranche has to be paid in 12 monthly instalments while for the second tranche, the minimum repayment period is six months and a maximum of 18 months. Street vendors with Certificate of Vending or Identity Card issued by Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) as identified in the survey by ULBs are eligible to apply for loans under PM SVANidhi. Those not part of the survey, are issued a Letter of Recommendation (LoR) by their respective ULB to apply for the scheme.
Among lenders, State Bank of India had disbursed maximum applications 17.51 lakh followed by 5.95 lakh by Bank of Baroda, 5.82 lakh by Union Bank of India, 4.16 lakh by Punjab National Bank and 4.04 lakh by Canara Bank. In terms of states, Uttar Pradesh led the tally with 14.58 lakh applications disbursed followed by 8.07 lakh in Madhya Pradesh and 4.22 lakh in Gujarat.
Importantly, the government in January this year had launched the Udyam Assist Platform(UAP) – a formalisation project by the MSME ministry for street vendors, which are informal in nature as they are not registered under GST, to benefit from priority sector lending (PSL) by banks. The primary objective of UAP is to bring a large number of such informal micro enterprises (IMEs) into the formal economic fold.
According to the data from the Udyam portal, 53.07 lakh units were registered through UAP at the time of filing this report.