SVANidhi Scheme: Uttar Pradesh tops in loan disbursal to street vendors

New Delhi, Oct 26: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually distribute loans to nearly 300,000 street vendors under the PM SVANidhi Scheme (Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor's Atmanirbhar Nidhi Yojana), Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath has expressed satisfaction after the state in another first to its credit in implementing one of the Centre's most ambitious schemes.

In a statement, the Uttar Pradesh goovernment said that it has ranked first in all the categories - applications, sanctions and disbursements. The scheme was launched on June 1 by the central government to help the street vendors resume their livelihood activities that were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the State's official statistics, loans under SVANidhi scheme would be disbursed to 2.51 beneficiaries by October 27, 2020 when the Prime Minister will address the street vendors of the state.

The scheme aims at facilitating working capital loan up to Rs. 10,000 at a subsidised rate of interest, incentivising regular repayment of the loan and to reward digital transactions. The scheme aims at providing benefits to street vendors or hawkers in urban, semi-urban and rural areas.

According to reports, as many as 6,22,167 applications were received under the scheme in the State, the most in the country, out of which sanctions were given to 3,46,150 applicants while the loans were disbursed to 2,26,728 beneficiaries. Seven cities of Uttar Pradesh also find place in the list of top 10 cities of the country with latest additions of Ghaziabad and Kanpur.

It can be seen that Varanasi, Lucknow and Aligarh are the top three cities in the list while other cities of the state include Allahabad (4th), Gorakhpur (7th), Ghaziabad (9th) and Kanpur (10th). Other Indian cities in the list are Indore (5th), Bhopal (6th) and Hyderabad (8th).

As far as the entire list of states is concerned, MP is in the second slot with loan disbursements to over 1.25 lakh beneficiaries followed by Telangana (53,777), Gujarat (18,747), Andhra Pradesh (15,992), Maharashtra (13,021), Chhattisgarh (8,993), Tamil Nadu (8,389), Jharkhand (6,413) and Rajasthan (5,533).