The data shared by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs exhibits that there was a decline within the share of loans to street vendors of minority communities. Image for representational objective solely.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
A complete of 42.7 lakh loans amounting to ₹5,152.37 crore had been disbursed to street vendors under the PM SVANidhi scheme out of which solely 3.98 lakh or 9.3% had been to hawkers from the minority communities, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs advised the Rajya Sabha.
The PM SVANidhi is a micro-credit scheme which was launched by the federal government in 2020 to present handholding help to street vendors to tide over pandemic-induced financial stress. It facilitates collateral-free loans of ₹10,000, with subsequent loans of ₹20,000 and ₹50,000 with 7% curiosity subsidy.
The data shared by the Ministry in reply to a query by MP Dr. John Brittas on Monday exhibits that there was a decline within the share of loans to street vendors of minority communities with 10.23% in 2020-21, 9.25% in 2021-22 and an all-time low of 7.76% in 2022-23.
In 2020-21, 2,10,457 loans had been disbursed to minorities whereas it was 98,973 loans in 2021-22 and 88,609 in 2022-23.
“The data pertaining to the loans given under PM SVANidhi draws a bleak picture for minority street vendors,” stated Dr. Brittas.
“Albeit the minorities constitute around 20% of the total population of the country, their representation amongst street vendors is reported to be manifold owing to myriad socio-economic reasons,” he added.
According to the data shared by the Ministry, the State-wise disbursal of loans appeared to be aligned with its inhabitants, with Uttar Pradesh disbursing the utmost quantity of loans at 11,22,397, whereas Sikkim gave out only one mortgage.
Incidentally, Uttar Pradesh additionally gave the biggest quantity of loans to hawkers from minority communities at 95,032.
