On the first day of the two-day loan fair in the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) premises, a total 93 vendors of the city were issued loans under the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s Atmanirbhar Nidhi (Svanidhi) Scheme. The deputy municipal commissioner, Sonia Pant informed that there are about 1116 vendors from Dehradun city so far who have applied to be the beneficiaries of this scheme as per the Svanidhi scheme portal. She said that the officials from the corporation have personally informed more than 900 vendors of the city to visit the loan fair to benefit from the scheme. The MCD has also spread awareness about this scheme in major vending zones of the city and in the areas where the vendors do their business, said Pant. Informing about the eligibility of a vendor to be the beneficiary of this scheme, she said that a person who wants to apply to get the loan of up to Rs 10,000 under Svanidhi scheme should be engaged in vending before March 24 and it should be his or her main source of employment.
Though every type of vendor can get the loan under this scheme if they are eligible, most of the vendors who applied to be the beneficiaries from Dehradun city are vegetables and fruits vendors, informed Pant. She said that the corporation has also provided the letters of recommendation (LoR) to 1,380 vendors after inquiring about the authenticity of the vendors’ job. She said that the LoR allow those vendors to apply to be the beneficiary of the scheme who do not have any certificate, card or are not registered under MCD to prove they are street vendors.
Moreover, the officials informed that there are total 35 banks which are providing loans to the vendors out of which 16 banks participated in the fair which had the maximum pending applications of the vendors. About 106 applicants with pending applications interacted with the representatives of the banks in the fair and 96 new street vendors also approached MCD to apply for the loan under Svanidhi scheme, informed the municipal commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey. According to him, a total of 51 LoR were issued by the corporation on the first day out of which 41 applicants have applied in Svanidhi portal to be the beneficiary of the scheme. As per the officials, State Bank of India (SBI) disbursed 30 loans out of 40 which is the maximum so far. Besides, the banks including the Central Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Bank of India among several others also approved loans to street vendors, stated the officials. According to them, 93 loans were approved by the banks on the first day of the fair and this number will possibly increase on the second day.
Thursday, 19 November 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
