Government offers street vendors loans

Government offers street vendors loans

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Dec 02, 2020:    Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) that once was evicting street vendors encroaching upon footpaths and road sides through its ‘Operation Tiger’, offered them a red carpet welcome with loans through financial institutions under a ‘loan utsav’ at the town hall here on Tuesday.

 

 

 

 

The district-level ‘loan utsav’ had been organised by the MCC in association with other urban local bodies to facilitate micro finance loans to street vendors under the Pradhan Mantri Street Vendors Atmanirbhar Nidhi Yojana or PM SVANidhi Scheme.

Incidentally the ‘utsav’ was organised after the Mayor Diwakar went on record this June that the civic body will resume the Operation Tiger that had been launched over five years ago also when the BJP was leading the city corporation council. The Mayor also suggested at a consultative meeting last month that distributing loans to street vendors under the scheme should not become a nuisance while ensuring safe footpaths for pedestrians and smooth traffic movement in the city.

The urban local bodies organised the ‘utsav’ to meet the target of distributing loans to 7,500 street vendors in Dakshina Kannada.

Speaking at the inauguration of the ‘utsav’ the Moodbidri MLA Umanath A. Kotiyan said that ‘those who are born with golden spoons in their mouths will not be able to understand what exactly the hunger and plight of the poor is. Only those who are born poor will be able to understand the plight of the poor’.

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi knows the plight of the poor as he was once selling tea on a railway platform in Gujarat. Hence, he launched PM SVANidhi Scheme.

Member of Parliament from Dakshina Kannada Nalin Kumar Kateel who inaugurated the utsav said that the nationwide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19 had pushed many traders, including street vendors, into trouble. “The scheme has been introduced to enable street vendors to recover financially. The vendors should make use of it,” he said.

Referring to other schemes of the Union government, Mr. Kateel said that the Jan Dhan Yojana made 35 crore people have bank accounts to which the government directly transferred the financial benefits of various schemes.

He said that 4,176 persons in Dakshina Kananda have applied for loans under PM SVANidhi Scheme. Of them, 1,600 who have been sanctioned loans have resumed their business activities.

The South Canara District Central Cooperative Bank has helped in advancing loans to 300 fisherwomen under the PM SVANidhi Scheme, Mr. Kateel said.

MLAs D. Vedavyasa Kamath, Y. Bharat Shetty, Rajesh Naik U, Harish Poonja, S. Angara and Sanjeeva Matandoor, the president of SCDCC bank M. N. Rajendra Kumar were present. The Commissioner of MCC Akshy Sridhar spoke.

Courtesy:The Hindu