Credit and finance for MSMEs: With micro and small enterprises growing past the Covid-inflicted damage, the number of beneficiaries or borrowers under the government’s PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PMSVANidhi) scheme, which facilitates collateral-free working capital loan to Covid-hit street vendors to restart their business, has dropped significantly. According to the data shared in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha by the minister of state Pankaj Chaudhary in the finance ministry, the number of beneficiaries as of March 16 in the current fiscal stood at 4.82 lakh, down 45 per cent from 8.86 lakh in FY22 and 76 per cent from 20.58 lakh in FY21 when the scheme was launched.
The scheme enables collateral-free loans up to Rs 10,000 of one year tenure, with enhanced loans of Rs 20,000 and Rs 50,000 in the second and third tranches respectively on repayment of earlier loans. Moreover, it provides an interest subsidy at 7 per cent per annum as an incentive for regular repayment of loans and also provides cashback of up to Rs 1,200 per year as a reward to the borrower for transacting digitally.
States with the highest number of PM SVANidhi’s beneficiaries in FY23 as of March 16 were Maharashtra with 1.38 lakh borrowers followed by Uttar Pradesh with 1.31 lakh borrowers, Madhya Pradesh with 58,261 borrowers, Gujarat with 42,371 borrowers, Karnataka with 22,098 borrowers.
As of March 23, 2023, out of 64.13 lakh loan applications received, 48.13 lakh were sanctioned, and 42.20 lakh were disbursed with Rs 5,081 crore, according to the data shared by Kaushal Kishore, minister of state in the ministry of housing and urban affairs in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. For the uninitiated, the government last year had announced the extension of the PM SVANidhi scheme’s validity up to December 2024 from March 2022 and also introduced the provision of a third loan of up to Rs 50,000.
Also read: PM SVANidhi: Loans to street vendors jump to nearly 90% of applications sanctioned
As per the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) conduct a survey for the identification of street vendors and issue Certificate of Vending (CoVs) and Identity (ID) Cards. Those issued CoVs/ID Cards and are vending on or before March 24, 2020, are eligible to apply for the PM SVANidhi scheme.
