NEW DELHI: In the past two years, 30.25 lakh street vendors have got Rs 10,000 collateral free loan each at subsidised interest rate under the PM Svanidhi scheme and little over 3 lakh have received Rs 20,000 loan each after paying back their first tranche of loan.
Now 64 street vendors have got the third tranche of Rs 50,000 loan each after paying back their past loans in time and their number is increasing.
The provision to get a Rs 50,000 loan was approved by the Cabinet in April. “So those getting the third tranche of loan under this scheme have received in total Rs 80,000 from banks and that too at lower interest rate. The focus of the scheme has been to ensure that the street vendors have access to financial institutions,” said an official.
Union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri said the NPAs in the scheme are in the range of 12-13% and this is a very manageable number.
“In fact, what is encouraging is many people are now applying for the second tranche and some for the third, which means repayments have been far better and higher. Most people who have taken these loans are repaying EMIs on time,” he added.
So far the banks have released around Rs 3,600 crore to the identified street vendors since the scheme was launched in June 2020 to help the street vendors who were badly hit due to the nationwide lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic.
The official data show that nearly 11.67 lakh street vendors have paid back their first tranche of loans and around 435 have paid back the second tranche till now. Officials said more beneficiaries are paying back their loans.
According to the government data, among the major states, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Assam have surpassed the target in disbursal of the first tranche of loan while West Bengal and Kerala are at the bottom of the list.
