BHUBANESWAR: The state government on Sunday convened a meeting with bankers to provide livelihood opportunities for urban street vendors through financial inclusion and asked them to clear around 32,000 pending PM SVA Nidhi loans at the earliest.
The loan scheme of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA,) intended at providing hand-holding support to street vendors, is a micro-credit scheme that provides a collateral free loan of Rs 10,000, with subsequent loans of Rs 20,000 and Rs 50,000 with 7 per cent interest subsidy. Discussions were also held on ways to speed up Socio-Economic Profiling across targeted ULBs for inclusion of street vendors under various social welfare programmes of state government. All bankers agreed to work together on this front.
The bankers agreed to work together as a team in coordination with BMC and other ULB officials to bring improvement in the livelihood of the street vendors with financial support under various schemes of the government as well as under PM SVA Nidhi.
“Bank partners are imperative to be aligned timely with various pro-poor initiatives for timely facilitation and in a journey of uplifting the urban poor and transforming their lives,” said State Urban Development Agency director Sarada Prasad Panda, who chaired the crucial meeting.