SVANidhi Yojna gives new identity, opportunity: PM Modi to Madhya Pradesh street vendors

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the Centre has formulated a scheme to provide an online platform to street food vendors across the country to help them deliver food to customers like big restaurants. In his address via webcast to street vendors of Madhya Pradesh, Modi said work was going on at a rapid pace on the platform.

PM Modi, who interacted with three vendors from the state’s Sanver (Indore), Gwalior and Sanchi, said the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the poor and the society’s deprived sections most. He added the government has made efforts to help them through various scheme. “The government will ensure that those registered under Pradhan Mantri SVANidhi Yojna are taken care of and provided all basic amenities.”

The SVANidhi Yojna has been formulated for street vendors to provide them access to affordable loans for resuming their livelihoods hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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“Under the scheme, the government will see if the street vendors are getting the benefits of Ujjawala [for distribution of LPG connections], Ayushman Bharat [health insurance scheme], housing and other government schemes. If they do not… the government will work on it on a priority basis.”

Modi said the SVANidhi Yojna has given a new identity and opportunity to a large number of street vendors to resume and promote their businesses. He said Rs 10,000 loans can be initially taken under the scheme. Modi added street vendors could improve their borrowing capacity gradually by improving their business and repaying loans on time.

He called on vendors to come up with innovative ideas to take their businesses to new levels and work on digital payments. “In the last four years, digital transactions have gone up. During Covid-19 period, we saw it was necessary also. Now customers avoid making a cash payment.”

Modi said many people talked about the poor repeatedly but the work done for them in the last six years in a planned manner was never done before. “Several steps were taken…to help the poor become self-reliant and fight against poverty on their own and come out it.” He said the Centre’s schemes have supported Dalits, tribals and other have-nots.

Modi said the poor once would not go to the banks out of fear of papers but now 400 million people have their bank accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. “It is because of Jan Dhan Yojna that the poor are linked with the banks, getting easy loans and could get out of tentacles of moneylenders. It is because of these bank accounts that the poor are getting houses without paying bribes. Farmers are getting assistance directly in their bank accounts.”

He said during the pandemic over 200 million women got Rs 31,000 crore in their accounts thanks to the Jan Dhan Yojna. “Similarly, under PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, more than Rs 94,000 crore were transferred directly to the bank accounts of more than 100 million farmers.”

He said soon every village would be linked with online markets and thus the world would be linked to villages. “We resolved on August 15 this year to provide optical fibre to every village in 1,000 days. Thus every village will have internet facility and thus the villages too will benefit from the digital revolution.”

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