PM Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi)
PM Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi)
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) for providing working capital loan to street vendors. PM SVANidhi Scheme was announced as a part of the Economic Stimulus-II package under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. The primary objective of the PM SVANidhi is to provide relief to street vendors and resume their livelihoods that have been badly affected by the COVID 19 pandemic and consequent lockdowns. The Present article briefs the PM SVANidhi Scheme eligibility, loan details and application procedure.
Objectives of the PM SVANidhi Scheme
The objective of the PM SVANidhi Scheme is to provide relief to Street Vendors reeling under the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. As part of this scheme, Government aims to provide a Special Micro-Credit Facility in the form working capital loan of 10,000 at a subsidized rate of interest to street vendors. This scheme is introduced to promote Digital Transactions by Vendors.
Features of PM SVANidhi
The salient features of the PM Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) is as follows:
- The eligible street vendor can avail a working capital loan of Rs.10000 as part of this scheme.
- An interest subsidy of seven per cent per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of the street vendors through direct benefit transfer for timely or early repayment of the PM SVANidhi loan.
- For PM SVANidhi loan, no collateral will be taken by the lending institutions.
- On timely or early repayment, the vendors will be eligible for the next cycle of the working capital loan with an enhanced limit.
- No prepayment penalty will be charged from the vendors for repayment before the scheduled date.
Implementation Agency
Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) is the implementation agency of PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi). Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the MoHUA and SIDBI to engage SIDBI as the Implementation Agency
The Target Beneficiary of PM SVANidhi
The PM Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) targets to benefit over 50 lakh street vendors/hawkers, who had been vending on or before 24.03.2020. As beneficiaries, the street vendors belonging to urban areas and the surrounding peri-urban or rural areas are also included under this urban livelihoods programme.
Identification of Beneficiaries for PM SVANidhi Scheme
The eligible vendors will be identified through a survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The eligible vendors will be identified as per the following criteria:
- Street vendors in possession of Certificate of Vending / Identity Card issued by Urban Local Bodies (ULBs)
- The vendors, who have been identified in the survey but have not been issued Certificate of Vending / Identity Card
- Street Vendors, left out of the ULB led identification survey
- Street Vendors who have started vending after completion of the survey
- Street Vendors who have been issued Letter of Recommendation (LoR)
Note: The applicant is requested to access the official website of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to know whether the vendor is in the surveyed list.
Eligibility Criteria for Street Vendors/hawkers
- Any person engaged in vending of articles, goods, wares, food items are eligible for this scheme
- The person who merchandise of daily use is also included in this urban livelihood programme.
- The person who offering services to the public in a street, footpath, pavement from a temporary built-up structure can apply for the scheme
- The person who offering services to the public in a street, footpath, pavement by moving from place to place is also eligible for PM SVANidhi.
Eligible Goods/Products
The goods supplied by the street vendors must include any one of the following items to avail the benefit of the scheme.
- Vegetables and Fruits
- Ready-to-eat street food, Tea, pagodas and bread
- Egg
- Textile and apparel
- Artisan products
- Books/ stationary
Eligible Services
The following services also included in the PM Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi):
- Barbershops
- Cobblers
- Pan shops
- Laundry services
Eligible Lending Institution
The following lending institutions will provide credit facility to Street Vendors under the PM SVANidhi Scheme:
- Scheduled Commercial Banks
- Regional Rural Banks
- Small Finance Banks
- Cooperative Banks
- Non-Banking Financial Companies
- Micro-Finance Institutions and self-help group (SHG) Banks.
Eligibility of States/UTs
The PM SVANidhi Scheme is available for beneficiaries belonging to only those States/UTs which have notified Rules and Scheme under Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.
Tenure of the PM SVANidhi Scheme
The PM Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi ((PM SVANidhi) Scheme will be implemented up to March 2022.
PM SVANidhi Loan Details
The street vendors will be eligible to avail a Working Capital (WC) loan of up to 10,000 with tenure of 1 year and repaid in monthly instalments. For PM SVANidhi loan, no collateral will be taken by the lending institutions.
Rate of Interest
The rate of interest for the PM SVANidhi loan is tabulated here:
| Sl.No | Lending Institution | Rate of Interest |
| 1 | Scheduled Commercial Banks, | As per their prevailing rates of interest. |
| 2 | Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), | |
| 3 | Small Finance Banks (SFBs | |
| 4 | Cooperative Banks | |
| 5 | SHG Banks | |
| 6 | Non-bank financial institution | As per RBI guidelines |
| 7 | NBFC-MFIs | |
| 8 | MFIs (non-NBFC) | As per the extant RBI guidelines for NBFC-MFIs. |
| 9 | Other lender categories not covered under the RBI guidelines |
Interest Subsidy Details
The vendors, availing loan under the PM SVANidhi scheme, are eligible to get an interest subsidy at a rate of 7%. The interest subsidy amount will be credited into the borrower’s account quarterly. The interest subsidy under this scheme is available up to March 31, 2022. The subsidy will be available on first and subsequent enhanced loans up to that date.
Promotion of Digital Transactions by Vendors
The PM SVANidhi scheme will incentivize digital transactions by vendors through the cashback facility. The onboarded street vendors will be incentivised with a monthly cashback in the range of Rs.50 – 100 as per the following criteria:
- On executing 50 eligible transactions in a month: Rs.50 will be provided
- On executing the next 50 additional eligible transactions in a month: Rs.25 will be provided (i.e on reaching 100 eligible transactions, the street vendor will receive Rs.50)
- On executing the next additional 100 or more eligible transactions: Rs.25 will be offered (i.e on reaching 200 eligible transactions, the vendor will receive Rs.100).
Credit Guarantee Details
The PM Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) has a provision of Graded Guarantee Cover for the loans sanctioned, as indicated below, to be administered by Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE), which will be operated on portfolio basis:
- First Loss Default (Up to 5%): 100%
- Second Loss (beyond 5% up to 15%): 75% of default portfolio
- Maximum guarantee coverage will be 15% of the year portfolio
Documents for PM SVANidhi Scheme
The applicant is required to submit any of the documents for KYC purpose:
- Certificate of Vending
- Identity Cards (IDs) of the street vendors mentioned as covered in the surveyed list
- Letter of Recommendation (LoR) issued by the ULB / Town Vending Committee (TVC)
- Aadhaar Card, Voter’s Identity Card, Driving Licence, MNREGA Card, or PAN Card
The Scheme is available to vendors of surrounding development, peri-urban, rural areas vending in the geographical limits of the cities/ towns and those left out of the survey. The applicant belongs to this category need to produce one of the following documents to obtain the Letter of Recommendation from ULB/TVC:
- Documents of past loan taken from a bank, NBFC, MFI to vend;
- If the applicant is a member of street vendors’ association like NASVI, NHF, SEWA etc the membership details
- Any other documents to prove that applicant as a vendor; The applicant can also request ULB through a simple application on white paper to conduct a local enquiry to ascertain the genuineness of the claim.
Application Procedure
Applicants (street vendors), in possession of Certificate of Vending / ID Card issued by Urban Local Bodies and those covered in the ULB, led identification survey need to approach the representatives of the Banks, NBFCs and MFIs.
The lender representatives, including BCs and Agents, will file the relevant details in the search engine of the IT platform or mobile app developed for the scheme. For the successful cases, beneficiary verification will happen through an OTP sent to the beneficiary’s mobile.
After verification, BC / Agent will fill in the application form and upload the necessary documents. The filled-up application information will forward to The ULB / TVC.
After the verification, the application will forward to the concerned lending institution for sanction. The Street Vendors not covered in the identification survey may approach the BC / Agent with the documents mentioned below.
To know more about the scheme, refer to the official guidelines of MOUHA
guidelines