Svanidhi Scheme

Subject: Schemes

Context:

 Prime Minister held ‘Svanidhi Samvaad’ with street vendors from Madhya Pradesh.

Concept:

• It is a special micro-credit facility scheme for providing affordable loan to street vendors.
• The scheme is aimed at enabling the street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to COVID-19 lockdown.
• Under the scheme, each of these streets vendors will be given a credit loan of Rs 10,000, which they can return as monthly installments within a year.
• Those who repay their loans on time will get 7 percent annual interest as subsidy which will be transferred in their bank accounts. There is no provision for penalty
• 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 duration of the scheme is 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 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.