Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Puri on Thursday told Lok Sabha that the ministry’s “internal” target for the Pradhan Mantri Street Vendors Atmanirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) loan scheme was 50 lakh vendors. “When we devised the scheme, we thought a total of 42 lakh of our vendors would benefit. That was the target. The street vendors associations’ members have told us that maybe there are 2 crore street vendors in the country, not 40-50 lakh,” he said, in response to a starred question. When the scheme was launched in 2020, the ministry had said it would benefit 50 lakh street vendors. As on July 27, the scheme had reached 38.77 lakh beneficiaries, as per the reply.
