Ahead of the scheduled civic polls, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has decided to provide micro loans of ₹10,000 to 1.80 lakh street vendors in the city under the PM SVANidhi Scheme. “The target for the city under the scheme was 55,000, but we sought a hike in the target and got it set at 1.8 lakh,” said Ram Prasat Manohar, Special Commissioner (Welfare), BBMP. Bank kiosks will be opened at markets to help street vendors avail loans, he said.
There is a problem though. The city’s civic body has till date only identified 25,000-odd street vendors through the first ever survey held in 2017 and issued ID cards only to 14,000 of them till date, while street vendor unions estimate the number of vendors in the city to be in the range of 1.5 - 2 lakh. Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 stipulates the formation of town vending committees and a survey of street vendors every five years, and as per that schedule, a survey is pending this year.
