🎯 Schemes & WelfareMAINS · GS2.10 · GS3.2

For 95% of street vendors, this was the first bank loan

PM SVANidhi has lent ₹18,475 crore across 1.15 crore collateral-free loans to 76.95 lakh vendors, and ISB's follow-up study found borrower incomes up about 20 per cent between 2023 and 2025.

What happened

76.95 lakh street vendors have taken over 1.15 crore loans worth ₹18,475 crore.
An ISB 2023 study found this was the first bank loan for 95 per cent of beneficiaries.
The ISB 2025 study found business income up about 20 per cent between 2023 and 2025.
About 30 per cent of borrowers now hold other loans — credit histories are forming.
29.71 lakh vendors have taken a second tranche and 8.49 lakh a third.

For Prelims

PM SVANidhi: PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi, launched 1 June 2020 for collateral-free working capital loans.
Scale: 76.95 lakh vendors, 1.15 crore loans, ₹18,475 crore (to 12 July 2026).
Tranche design: repayment unlocks a larger next loan — 29.71 lakh second-tranche and 8.49 lakh third-tranche borrowers.
Digital incentive: cashback up to ₹100 per month for 12 months (maximum ₹1,200 a year) per tranche.
Evaluator: the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad — studies in 2023 and 2025.
Key finding: first bank loan for 95 per cent; income up about 20 per cent 2023–25.
Enabling law: the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.

For UPSC: One of the few schemes with a published independent impact study. Use it for financial inclusion and credit histories, the informal urban economy and the Street Vendors Act, microcredit design through graduated tranches, and evaluation as a governance practice.

What it is NOT: The income growth figure comes from a panel study of borrowers, not a comparison against similar non-borrowers — it measures how borrowers fared, not what the scheme alone caused.

For Mains

Syllabus: GS2.10 · GS3.2 · Linkage L2

Anchor

The scheme's real product is not the loan; it is the credit history that comes after it.

Substantiation (data)

₹18,475 crore across 1.15 crore loans to 76.95 lakh vendors, with ISB finding it the first bank loan for 95 per cent and incomes up about 20 per cent from 2023 to 2025.

Exemplification

Around 30 per cent of borrowers now hold other loans, and 8.49 lakh have graduated to a third tranche.

Problematisation

Coverage still turns on being a surveyed and certified vendor under the 2014 Act, which leaves the unenumerated and the mobile vendor outside; and a before-after panel cannot isolate the scheme's own effect.

Way-forward

Complete vendor surveys and Town Vending Committees under the 2014 Act, and commission an evaluation with a genuine comparison group.

Position

Formal credit is the cheapest form of urban dignity the state can extend.

Deploys into: Government interventions + inclusive growth (GS2.10, GS3.2) · financial inclusion and credit histories, the informal urban economy and the Street Vendors Act, and impact evaluation.

Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs · 2026-08-10 · PRID 2297255 · PIB source ↗