PM Modi Reviews PM-SVANidhi Scheme's Web & Mobile App Use

PM-SVANidhi Scheme: Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed satisfaction with the use of an end-to-end IT solution for the management of the scheme through a web portal and a mobile app to ensure transparency, accountability, and accuracy.

Earlier on Saturday Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the implementation of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs' PM-SVANidhi Scheme. More than 2.6 lakh applications were submitted, more than 64,000 were approved and more than 5,500 were disbursed.

Prime Minister Modi expressed satisfaction with the use of end-to-end IT solutions to ensure transparency, accountability, and speed through a web portal and mobile app to manage the PM-SVANidhi Scheme.

While noting that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is working on a comprehensive IT solution including a mobile application to enforce the scheme seamlessly, the Prime Minister said the scheme design would enable street vendors to use end-to-end digital transactions.

"This should cover the entire gamut of their business - from procurement of raw material to the collection of sale proceeds. Appropriate incentives and training should be conducted for this purpose. Use of digital payments would also help build a credit profile for the street vendor helping them in future financial needs," he said.

The Prime Minister stressed that the system could not necessarily be viewed from the viewpoint of extending loans to street vendors.

Stipulating that the scheme should be used as part of a street vendor outreach for its holistic growth and economic upliftment, he said: "One step in this direction would be by capturing their entire socio-economic details to facilitate necessary policy interventions. Such data could also be used by different Ministries of Government of India to benefit them under various schemes for which they are eligible, on priority."

Which include PMAY-U accommodation, Ujjawala cooking gas, Saubhagya electricity, Ayushman Bharat health, DAY-NULM skills, Jan Dhan bank account, and other schemes.

The Center has introduced PM SVANidhi Scheme to encourage collateral-free work capital loans to approximately 50 lakh street vendors for up to  Rs. 10,000 of one-year tenure to resume their business. Incentives are offered in the form of interest subsidy (at 7 percent per annum) and cashback (up to a limit of 1,200 per annum) to facilitate good repayment conduct and digital transactions. The interest subsidy basically averages out at 24 percent annual interest to 30 percent of the total interest cost for a loan of some 10,000.

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Therefore, in turn, the borrower does not pay any interest if he repays in time and uses digital transactions for all receipts and payments and gets a subsidy on the loan sum. The scheme requires improved early or timely repayment of the next tranche of the loan. Loan processing has started since 2 July this year through an IT portal "PM SVANidhi" with the Indian Small Industries Development Bank (SIDBI), which is the implementation agency for the administration of the scheme.