Urban bodies disburse 47,884 loans in Delhi under PM SVANidhi Scheme

Urban local bodies here have approved and issued 1.09 lakh letters of recommendation for loans to banks under a micro-credit scheme for street vendors, and of these 47,884 loans have been sanctioned till now, official sources said on Thursday.

The PM SVANidhi Scheme is one of the central flagship schemes being monitored by Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, they said.

Baijal has been consistently reviewing and monitoring the implementation of flagship schemes in the city for the past one year to ensure seamless coordination between different agencies and departments, the sources said.

Besides the PM SVANidhi Yojana, flagship schemes also include the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) and the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC).

The PM SVAnidhi Scheme is aimed at providing financial relief to street vendors who are under stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdowns.

Officials said that the lieutenant governor (L-G) wrote to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor to prompt hesitant banks to disburse loans to beneficiaries under the scheme.

"Over the past less than one year, Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have approved and issued 1,09,862 letters of recommendation (LoRs) for loans to banks. Of these, 79,406 applications actually reached banks and till now 47,884 loans have been sanctioned," an official source said.

Similarly, under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) scheme, about 79,000 dwelling units are to be provided to about four lakh people living in the slums of Delhi. Of these, while 51,716 units are to be developed as per the in-situ rehabilitation policy while about 26,000 houses have been provided credit link subsidy, the sources said.

So far, 3,024 houses in A-14, Kalkaji Extension area have been completed while 2,800 houses in Kathputli Colony and 1,675 in Jailorwala Bagh and Ashok Vihar are finally on the verge of completion, they said.

The sources said that the ONORC scheme has been implemented in all 1,998 Fair Price Shops here with effect from July 19.

They said July, August, September and October saw 16,150, 40,797, 91,268 and 1,06,926 transactions respectively under ONORC.

Till November 25, nearly 67,822 transactions were recorded under ONORC in Delhi. Delhi has the highest of transactions across India in aforementioned months, official sources said.