‘Main Bhi Digital 3.0’ campaign for digital empowerment of street vendors

LUDHIANA: For empowering street vendors and helping them to use digital payment platforms, the municipal corporation (MC) is organising camps under ‘Main Bhi Digital’ campaign being run under Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s Atmanirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Yojana.
One such camp was organised at MC Zone A office on Tuesday wherein over two dozen street vendors participated. During this camp, the MC teams facilitated the street vendors to get their UPI accounts (PhonePe, Paytm etc) enabled and also helped them avail affordable loans under PM SVANidhi Yojana.
City Mission manager under the PM Svvanidhi scheme Naveen Grewal stated that the yojana was a special micro-credit facility launched by the ministry of housing and urban affairs for providing affordable loans to street vendors. They can avail loan of Rs 10,000 for investment and if they repay the loan in time, he/she becomes eligible for higher amount of loans. There are a number of street vendors, who have availed loans of upto Rs 50,000 under the scheme in the city. No interest is charged on the loans of Rs 10,000 and 7% interest subsidy is given on the loans of higher amounts.
For encouraging digital payments, online payments made by the street vendors through UPI platforms are also rewarded through cashbacks. A letter of recommendation (LOR) is issued by the MC after checking the documents and Aadhar card of the street vendors on the basis of which banks issue loans to the vendors, Grewal said, adding that over 5,000 street vendors had benefited in the city under the PM SVANidhi scheme during last around three years.
Civic body zonal commissioner Neeraj Jain and superintendent Vivek Verma stated that the ‘Main Bhi Digital’ campaign commenced on February 6 and camps would be organised under the campaign in different zones of the MC till February 16. Over 200 street vendors have benefited under the campaign as of now and their UPI accounts have been enabled.
MC commissioner Dr Shena Aggarwal stated that regular camps were being organised to help the street vendors in getting the benefits under PM SVANidhi and other government schemes.