Svanidhi se Samridhi scheme expanded to 126 more cities

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India expanded the scheme ‘Seva se Samridhi’ to include 126 more cities across 14 states and union territories, on Tuesday. Svanidhi se Samridhi is an additional scheme of PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) launched on January 4, 2021, which in its first phase, covered 125 cities and around 35 lakh street vendors and their families. After the success of phase-I, the scheme is now being expanded to cover 28 lakh street vendors and their families, with the goal of 20 lakh plan approvals for 2022-23.

PM SVANidhi was launched by the central government on June 1, 2020, to provide micro-credit loans to street vendors, through lending institutions.

Manoj Joshi, Secretary, MoHUA in his address said that despite the challenge of the COVID-19, the scheme has successfully provided social security benefits to street vendors. Sanjay Kumar, Additional Secretary, MoHUA said that this scheme has helped in two ways. Firstly, a central database of street vendors has been created on the basis of socio-economic indicators. This socio-economic profiling is done across the areas of housing, health coverage, education, women and child welfare, banking, migration status, etc. Secondly, it has helped the street vendors connect to existing welfare schemes like PM Suraksha Bima Yojana, PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, PM Shram Yogi Mandhan Yojana, One Nation One Ration Card, PM Jan Dhan Yojana, Registration under (Building and other Construction Works) BoCW, Janani Suraksha Yojana and PM Matru Vandana Yojana.