In a bid to bring street food vendors on the eCommerce platform, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has entered into an MoU with Indian food delivery giant, Swiggy. The move comes as a part of Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme.
This will give the vendors online access to thousands of consumers and help them grow their businesses.
The MoU was exchanged by Joint Secretary Sanjay Kumar and chief financial officer Swiggy Rahul Bothra, through video conference in the presence of Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Durga Shanker Mishra, and officials of Swiggy and Ministry. Municipal Commissioners of Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Indore, and Varanasi were the other participants of the webinar.
While street vendors across the countries have gone financially broke during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the ministry’s initiative comes as a relief. It aims to radically transform the business of these vendors across cities, by facilitating them to receive orders and serve customers using online mode of business with proper social distancing and hygiene.
In a first, MoHUA has coordinated with the key stakeholders including Municipal Corporations, FSSAI, Swiggy, and GST officials to ensure that necessary prerequisites are completed for this initiative.
MoHUA and Swiggy will run a pilot program by on-boarding 250 vendors across five cities namely – Ahmadabad, Chennai, Delhi, Indore, and Varanasi. The street vendors will be facilitated with pan and FSSAI registration, training on technology/ partner app usage, menu digitization and pricing, hygiene, and packaging best practices. Upon the successful completion of the pilot, MoHUA and Swiggy plan to expand this initiative across the country in several phases.
Secretary, HUA also launched the updated and modified version of PM SVANidhi Dashboard, which facilitates users not only with a better granular view of the scheme’s performance but also with additional tools for comparisons.
The Ministry is implementing PM SVANidhi Scheme since June 1, 2020, for providing affordable working capital loans to street vendors to resume their livelihoods that are adversely affected due to Covid-19. Under the Scheme, street vendors can avail of a working capital loan of up to Rs 10,000, which is repayable in monthly installments within one year. An interest subsidy @ 7% per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer on a quarterly basis on timely repayment.
Moreover, there will be no penalty on the early repayment of loans. The scheme promotes digital transactions through cash-back incentives up to Rs. 1,200 per annum.
The scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh street vendors, who had been vending on or before March 24, 2020, in urban areas including those from surrounding semi-urban and rural areas.
By October 2020, over 20 lakh loan applications have been received under the PM SVANidhi Scheme. Out of these, over 7.5 lakh loans have been sanctioned and over 2.4 lakh disbursed already.