People exhorted to make use of PM SVANidhi

Vijayawada: The poor people should rightly utilise the centrally-sponsored Prime Minister Street Vendor Atmanirbhar Nidhi (SVANidhi) for their development, said minister for municipal administration P Narayana. He was the chief guest at the distribution of SVANidhi awards meeting here on Tuesday.

The minister said that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu aimed at increasing the income of everyone in the state and several programmes are being introduced in MEPMA in that direction.

During the Covid-19, street venders are the worst hit and PM SVANidhi was introduced for their welfare.

The persons who took loan of Rs 10,000 under PM SVANidhi would be given next time Rs 20,000 if they repaid in time. If that was also paid in one-and-a-half years, they would be given Rs 50,000. Ultimately, they may be eligible for the loan amount of Rs 1 crore, the minister said. The beneficiaries under SVANidhi would have to pay 4.5 per cent interest while the Centre would bear the 7 per cent interest.

The minister said that under SVANidhi, 5,48, 957 persons applied for loans and 5,02,894 were given loans. He complimented the officials and the bankers who showed impressive work in the implementation of SVANidhi programme. Particularly, he complimented the municipal commissioners of Guntur, Puttur and Rayachoti.

He mentioned that Rs 741 crore was given to 5.03 lakh between 2020-24, while in 2024 alone, Rs 288 crore was given.

The Central government had announced PRAISE awards to 38 officials at the state-level for the effective implementation of the scheme. MEPMA director N Tej Bharat was complimented for his hard work in the implementation of the scheme. SSBC coordinator Srinivas Dasyam also spoke.

Later, the minister distributed cheques worth Rs 10 crore under SVANidhi scheme.

Vijayawada municipal commissioner Dhyana Chandra, Visakhapatnam municipal commissioner Sampat Kumar, Guntur municipal commissioner P Srinivasa Rao, SBI DGM Manish Kumar Singh, TR district MEPMA project director Venkata Narayan and others participated.