Housing Ministry, SIDBI sign MoU for special micro-credit facility for street vendors.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), recently, signed an MoU to engage SIDBI as the implementation agency for the PM Street Vendor’s AatmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi), a special micro-credit facility for street vendors.

“As per the MoU terms, SIDBI will implement the PM SVANidhi Scheme under the guidance of the MoHUA. It will also manage the credit guarantee to the lending institutions through Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE),” said an official release.

SIDBI will also develop and maintain a customised and integrated IT platform that provides end-to-end solutions, including documentation of the processes and workflows, through a portal and a mobile app, to ensure engagement and information flow between urban local bodies, lending institutions, digital payment aggregators and other stakeholders, it added.

PM SVANidhi was launched by the MoHUA on June 1 to provide affordable working capital loan to street vendors who have been adversely affected by the Covid-19 lockdown. This scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh street vendors.

Under the scheme, vendors can avail a working capital loan of up to ₹10,000, which is repayable in monthly instalments in the tenure of one year.

The MoU was signed by Sanjay Kumar, Joint Secretary, on behalf of MoHUA, and VSatya Venkata Rao, Deputy Managing Director, SIDBI, in the presence of Hardeep SPuri, Minister of State (independent charge), MoHUA.

SIDBI will also provide a project management unit to ensure effective implementation of the scheme comprising domain experts from the training/capacity building, project and platform management, Information Education and Communication (IEC), banking, NBFC and MFI sectors, up to March 2022.

HBL