Union Minister Asks Banks & ULBs In Odisha To Cover More Street Vendors Under PM SVANidhi Scheme

Bhubaneswar: Union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad on Saturday instructed all banks and ULBs to work in collaboration with each other to achieve the goals of the PM SVANidhi scheme so that more street vendors can avail the benefits.

He was speaking at a regional meeting in Bhubaneswar on the progress of PM SVANidhi scheme in Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal with special emphasis on reducing the number of applications returned by banks. He assessed the progress made by these states in achieving the targets under the scheme.

Karad requested all urban local bodies (ULBs) of the four states to review the applications returned by banks and resubmit those after rectification of deficiencies for further sanction and disbursement. “All ULBs should work in camp mode and mobilise fresh applications for banks to sanction/disburse these applications to achieve the targets in a time bound manner,” he said.

He instructed the banks and ULBs to intensify their efforts with innovative strategies to enhance the digital onboarding of street vendors. He also emphasised on improvement in profiling of PM SVANidhi beneficiaries and their family members and facilitating their linkages to various Central welfare schemes.

The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Urban Development, Odisha, other officials of state government, Commissioners of Municipal Administration and SLBC Conveners from the respective states, EDs from PSBs and local heads of banks.

PM SVANidhi scheme envisages empowerment of street vendors through hassle-free access to affordable credit and digital onboarding for their economic development. As many as 9, 56.7 lakh applications have been sanctioned and 53.19 lakh applicants disbursed Rs 6,883 crore as on August 9.