PM Narendra Modi praises UP govt's disbursal performance

Lucknow: Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the efficacy of the PM Street Vendor’s Atmanirbhar Nidhi (SVANidhi) Yojana and lauded the Uttar Pradesh government which has disbursed the highest loans under the scheme.

“The government launched the PM SVANidhi Yojana on June 1and by July 2, or within a month, we started receiving applications on the online portal. When it comes to implementation of schemes, the country saw such a speed for the first time,” the PM said on Tuesday, addressing beneficiaries of the scheme from Agra, Varanasi and Lucknow via videoconferencing. “Nobody would have imagined a welfare scheme for the poor to be implemented on the ground so quickly.” Launched in June to provide working capital to street vendors hit hard by the lockdown and help them resume their businesses, the scheme allows the vendors to avail collateral free working capital loans of up to Rs 10,000 for a year. The scheme provides interest subsidies and an enhanced borrowing limit for the next cycle of loan if repayment is made on time.

It also seeks to incentivise digital transactions by vendors by promising monthly cashbacks of Rs 100. More than 1.2 million loans have been sanctioned and about 565,000 loans disbursed across the country, with UP topping the list of states by sanctioning 370,000 loans and disbursing loans to 274,000 vendors. “I want to congratulate the UP government for its prompt care for the street vendors.”