Though the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) is yet to launch a fresh survey of street vendors in the city, the number of applications received for the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s Atmanirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi), a special micro-credit facility for street vendors launched by the Centre last year, crossed 20,000 in Mysuru.
MCC Additional Commissioner Shashi Kumar told The Hindu that over 20,000 applications from the city had been received for the scheme, which seeks to provide collateral-free working capital loans upto ₹10,000.
However, the total number of street vendors in MCC limits with an identity card and a vending certificate is no more than 1,856 at present. “We will be starting a fresh survey of street vendors in the city soon,” he said.
The 1,856 identity cards were given to vendors in Mysuru about three years ago. The response to the MCC exercise in 2018 to identify street vendors in the city and issue them identity cards and vending certificates, was very poor, said Bhaskar Srinivas Raje Urs president, Karnataka Street Vendors’ Federation.
Lockdown effect?
Their numbers were much more three years ago. But, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown had substantially increased the number of vendors in Mysuru with a large number of private school teachers, factory workers and even autorickshaw drivers turning street vendors, said Mr. Urs.
It may be mentioned here that the number of people taking to vending a variety of food items on the streets went up sharply during the lockdown.
“Though many had dropped out lately, a few are continuing,” he said, while claiming that that the total applications for the PM SVANidhi scheme from Mysuru had crossed 22,500. He claimed that 8,500 of the applicants had been sanctioned the loan too. Similarly, Mr. Urs claimed that about 12,000 persons from Mysuru had received the COVID-19 aid of ₹2,000 given by the State government to street vendors.
Applications for PM SVANidhi should be accompanied by not only copies of the applicant’s Aadhaar card, photo, ration card and voters’ identity card, but also a Letter of Recommendation (LoR) issued by the MCC, he said.
Previous surveys
With regard to previous surveys, Mr Urs said a total of 1,200 vendors were identified during an exercise confined to food street vendors during 2010. When another survey was conducted in 2011 to cover all vendors, a total of 4,800 were identified.
Meanwhile, the proposed new survey of street vendors in Mysuru is expected to be carried out by the Town Vending Committee of MCC comprising not only the Commissioner, but also health and police official, besides representatives from the vendors.
