MOHUA Joins Hands with Zomato to Take Street Food Vendors Online Under PM SVANidhi

As a part of Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AatmaNibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme, MoHUA entered into MoU with Zomato, one of the largest online platforms for ordering and delivery of food in India, to onboard street food vendors on its food-tech platform. This will give street food vendors online access to thousands of consumers and help these vendors grow their businesses. Further, MoHUA launched the Mobile Application for PMSVANidhi se Samriddhi- Socio-economic profiling of PM SVANidhi beneficiaries and their families to link them to various Central Government Schemes

The MoU with Zomato was exchanged between Shri Sanjay Kumar, Joint Secretary, MoHUA and Shri Mohit Sardana, Chief Operating Officer, Zomato, in the presence of Shri Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA, and officials of Zomato and Ministry. State Mission Directors of DAY-NULM from Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Punjab and Municipal Commissioners of Bhopal, Ludhiana, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Vadodra also participated in the ceremony through video conferencing facility.

Covid-19 pandemic has restricted consumers from stepping out and forced them to follow physical distancing norms. In the given scenario it is important to connect Street Food Vendors with technology enabled platforms to help them grow their business, thus helping them gain financially.

In a first of its kind initiative, MoHUA entered into an MoU with Swiggy on October 5, 2020 and it is now joining hands with Zomato to empower Street Food Vendors with digital technology and facilitate greater income earning opportunities by being present on a popular food-tech platforms. MoHUA has coordinated with the key stakeholders including Municipal Corporations, fssai, Zomato and GST officials to ensure that street food vendors are facilitated in completing the necessary prerequisites for this initiative.

Under the MoU, initially MoHUA and Zomato will run a pilot program by on-boarding 300 vendors across six cities namely – Bhopal, Ludhiana, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Vadodara. The street vendors will be helped 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 Zomato plan to expand this initiative across the country in phases.

A mobile application under PMSVANidhi se Samriddhi was launched today to assist city officials to conduct door to door data collection. MoHUA launched the program PMSVANidhi se Samriddhi—socio-economic profiling of PM SVANidhi beneficiaries and their families in 125 select cities, on 4^th January 2021, as an additional component of PMSVANidhi Scheme. This mobile application is available on Google Play store. The application will enable ULB field functionaries to conduct the socio-economic profiling activity even without any internet connection as well. Quality Council of India- implementing partner for this program, partnered with MoHUA to develop this mobile application.

The program aims to map the socio- economic profile of the PM SVANidhi beneficiaries and their families, assess their potential eligibility for various Central welfare schemes and facilitate the linkages to these schemes, for their holistic development and socio-economic upliftment. As on February 4^th, 2021, data collection of over 95,000 PMSVANidhi beneficiaries along with their 50, 000 family members is done. First batch of Camps are ongoing in the select cities (1^st to 6^th February 2021) to facilitate linkages of PM SVANidhi beneficiaries and their families to eligible Central Schemes.

The Ministry is implementing PM SVANidhi Scheme, since June 01, 2020, for providing affordable working capital loan to street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to Covid-19 lockdown. This Scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh Street Vendors who had been vending on or before 24 March, 2020 in urban areas, including surrounding peri-urban/ rural areas. Under the Scheme, the vendors can avail a collateral free working capital loan of up to Rs. 10,000, of one year tenure. On timely/ early repayment of the loan, an interest subsidy @ 7% per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) on quarterly basis. There will be no penalty on early repayment of loan. The Scheme promotes digital transactions through cash-back incentives up to an amount of Rs. 1,200 per annum. Street Vendors can fulfil their aspiration of climbing up the economic ladder by availing the facility of enhanced credit limit on timely/ early repayment of loan.

As on February 4, 2020, over 36.40 lakh loan applications have been received under the PM SVANidhi Scheme. Out of these, over 18.80 lakh loans have been sanctioned and over 14.04 lakh loans disbursed.