Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh distributed loans to a total of 1,269 vendors of different districts to support them in resuming their vending activities, which have been affected by the nationwide lockdown.

Earlier, 803 street vendors were benefitted under the Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s Atmanirbhar Nidhi – PM SVANidhi and 466 regular licensed vendors were provided assistance under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana- SHISHU.

The CM also distributed awards to Jiribam Municipal Council and Kakching Municipal Council officials for bagging Cleanest City in Northeast and Best City in citizen feedback awards respectively under Swachh Survekshan 2020 which was organized by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs.

On August 25, the chief minister distributed loans to a total of 817 vendors of different districts under PM-SVANidhi.

PM-SVANidhi was launched by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs on June 15 to provide affordable working capital loan to street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been affected due to COVID-19 lockdown.The scheme is valid until March 2022.

Under this scheme, the street vendors, who were vending within the limits of an urban local body as on March 24, 2020, can avail working capital loan of up to 10,000, which is repayable in monthly installments within the tenure of one year.

On timely and early repayment of loan, an Interest subsidy at 7% per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer on a quarterly basis.

The scheme promotes digital transactions through cashback incentives up to an amount of Rs 7,100 per month.

The vendors can avail the facility of escalation of the credit limit on timely/early repayment of loan.

Manipur consumers affairs, food & public distribution minister Karam Shyam; public health engineering minister L Dikho; agricultural minister V Hangkhanlian, forest minister Awangbow Newmai and several MLAs were present at the function.

Municipal administration housing and urban development officials also attended the function.

Sobhapati Samom is Northeast Now Correspondent in Imphal. He can be reached at: [email protected]