Finance Ministry on Thursday urged Public Sector Banks to devise a strategy and step up efforts to increase the digital onboarding of street vendors and scale up their digital payments.
This came as part of the performance review of the PM SVANidhi scheme and other central government financial inclusion programmes.
Department of Financial Services (DFS) Secretary Vivek Joshi, who chaired the review meeting, exhorted banks to expeditiously clear the sanction/disbursement pendency of applications under the PM SVANidhi scheme.
PM SVANidhi scheme envisages the empowerment of street vendors through hassle-free access to affordable credit and their digital onboarding for their economic development.
As of July 19, 2023, as many as 53.41 lakh applications have been sanctioned, while disbursements amounting to ₹ 6,472 crore have been done on 50.52 lakh applications.
In May 2023, a special campaign was organised by banks and Urban Local Bodies.
A total of 6,808 camps were held during the campaign period. A total number of 1,02,358 applications were sanctioned and disbursements were done on 1,01,354 applications. Additionally, 1,06,432 vendors were digitally onboarded during the campaign.