The Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has so far received more than 15 lakh loan applications, said the ministry.

“Out of these, more than 5.5 lakh loans have been sanctioned and about 2 lakh loans disbursed,” said an official release.

MoHUA is implementing PM SVANidhi Scheme to facilitate collateral free working capital loan to 50 lakh street vendors to restart their businesses post Covid lockdowns.

In order to expedite the loan-sanctioning process and provide ease of operation to the lenders, it has been decided to push the applications directly to the bank branches, which have been indicated by the vendor as ‘Preferred Lender’ or where the vendor holds a savings bank account, in case ‘Preferred Lender’ is not indicated, the release added.

A software has been developed to facilitate the above-mentioned process, which was made operational on September 11.

“Approximately 3 lakh applications would be pushed to the banks using this software. Henceforth, the applications would be pushed to the Preferred Lenders on a daily basis and for those where no Preferred Lender is indicated, on a weekly basis,” said the official release.