The share of applicants from minority communities and recipients of benefits has shrunk under a government scheme for providing loans to street vendors.
The decline comes even as application approvals under the scheme hit a high in 2023-24.
Minorities include the Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians. The government launched the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s Atma Nirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) in June 2020 to provide collateral-free loans to eligible urban street vendors during the pandemic and has disbursed over Rs 10,000 crore.
There were about 2.9 million beneficiaries under the scheme in 2023-24 (FY24), according to the data the government provided in
First Published: Jun 20 2024 | 10:05 PM IST
