New Delhi/Kolkata: Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in order to engage SIDBI as the Implementation Agency for PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) – a special micro-credit facility for street vendors.
The MoU was signed by Sanjay Kumar, Joint Secretary on behalf of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and V. Satya Venkata Rao, Deputy Managing Director, SIDBI, in the presence of Hardeep S. Puri, Minister of State (Independent Charge) MoHUA.
Union Minister Hardeep S. Puri took to twitter and said, “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.”
As per 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). It will develop and maintain a customized and integrated IT Platform providing end-to-end solutions, including documentation of all the processes and workflows for an end-to-end solution, through a Portal and a Mobile App, to ensure engagement and information flow between Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), Lending Institutions, Digital Payment Aggregators and other stakeholders. The platform shall also be integrated with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to enable the processes envisaged in the scheme.
It 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), Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), etc. for the Scheme implementation. It will help the beneficiaries to get credit from Commercial Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Small Finance Banks, Co-operative Banks, Non-Banking Financial Companies, MFIs and Self-Help Groups.
With a view to ensure effective implementation, SIDBI shall 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 etc., upto March 2022 till the implementation period of PMSVANidhi.
PM SVANidhi was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for providing affordable Working Capital loan to street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to Covid-19 lockdown, thus enabling them to be self-reliant. 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 the tenure of one year. On timely/ early repayment of the loan, an interest subsidy @ 7% per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries. This scheme will target street vendors vending in urban areas, as on or before March 24, 2020, including the vendors of surrounding peri-urban and rural areas.
