Context: Recently, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has launched PM SVANidhi, or Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi scheme, for providing affordable loans to street vendors.
About Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s Atmanirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme

• It is a special micro-credit facility scheme for providing affordable loan to street vendors.
• It is aimed at enabling the street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to COVID-19 lockdown.
• It has been launched by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in pursuance of the announcement made by Union Finance Minister under Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan stimulus package.
• The scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh street vendors, who had been vending on or before 24th March this year, in urban areas.
• The scheme will be applicable till March 2022.
• The street vendors belonging to the surrounding peri-urban or rural areas are being included as beneficiaries under the urban livelihoods programme for the first time.
• The vendors can avail a working capital loan of upto ten thousand rupees, which is repayable in monthly installments in the tenure of one year.
• The lending institutions under the Scheme include Scheduled Commercial Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Small Finance Banks, Cooperative Banks, NBFCs, Micro Finance institutions and Self Help Group banks.

Loans under the scheme

• Under the scheme, vendors can avail working capital loan of up to Rs 10,000, which is repayable in monthly instalments within one year.
• On timely/early repayment of the loan, an interest subsidy of 7% per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) on six-months basis.
• There will be no penalty on early repayment of loan.

Eligibility Criteria

• The scheme is applicable to vendors, hawkers, thelewalas, rehriwalas, the liphadwalas in different areas/contexts who supply goods and services. Street vendors belonging to the surrounding peri-urban/rural areas are also included.

Need for

• The lockdown has affected the lives and livelihoods of many especially daily wagers including street vendors whose businesses were affected due to the restrictions.
• Street vendors usually work with a small capital base taken on very high interest rates from informal sources. Further, they might have consumed their savings and high cost capital during the lockdown.
• Therefore, there is an urgent need to provide affordable credit for working capital through formal banking channel to street vendors to help them resume the business.