The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has signed a pact with Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) to implement PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) – a Special Micro-Credit Facility for Street Vendors.

PM SVANidhi is a central scheme fully funded by the ministry with the objective to facilitate working capital loans to street vendors, thus enabling them to emerge self-reliant after the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and revive their livelihood activity through formal access to credit.

According to a note issued by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (of MoHUA) on Monday, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with SIDBI to this effect.

Joint Secretary Sanjay Kumar signed on behalf of the MoHUA whereas V Satya Venkata Rao, Deputy Managing Director, did it for SIDBI in the presence of Union Minister Hardeep S Puri.

Happy to be present during the signing of MoU between @MoHUA_India & @sidbiofficial.
MoHUA has engaged SIDBI as the implementation agency for PM Street Vendors’ AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (#PMSVANidhi), a special microcredit facility for street vendors. @PMOIndia @narendramodi @PIB_India pic.twitter.com/T0dr25erHn

— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 19, 2020

Earlier, the MoHUA had launched the PM SVANidhi on June 1 for providing affordable working capital loan to street vendors to help them resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to coronavirus lockdown.

This scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh street vendors. Under the Scheme, the vendors can avail a working capital loan of up to Rs 10,000 which is repayable in monthly installments in tenure of one year.

An interest subsidy @ 7 per cent per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through direct benefit transfer on a quarterly basis on timely or early repayment of the loans. There will be no penalty on the early repayment of loans.

The scheme promotes digital transactions through cashback incentives up to an amount of Rs 100 per month. Moreover, the vendors can achieve their ambition of going up on the economic ladder by availing the facility of escalation of the credit limit on timely or early repayment of the loan.

According to the MoU terms, SIDBI will implement the PM SVANidhi scheme under the guidance of MoHUA.

It will also manage the credit guarantee to the lending institutions through Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE).

A customised and integrated IT platform will be developed and maintained to provide end-to-end solutions, including documentation of all the processes.

A portal and a mobile app would also be made available to ensure engagement and information flow between Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), lending institutions, digital payment aggregators, and other stakeholders.

SIDBI will leverage the network of lending Institutions like Scheduled Commercials Banks (SCBs), Non-Bank Finance Companies (NBFCs), Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), Co-operative Banks, Small Finance Banks (SFBs) and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) for the implementation of the credit scheme.

SIDBI will also provide a Project Management Unit (PMU), comprising of domain experts in training/ capacity building, project and platform management, Information Education and Communication (IEC), banking, NBFC and MFI sectors for the period of PM SVANidhi, which is up till March 2022.