IN HIS budget speech last year, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot announced interest-free loans to street vendors, youths from the services sector, unemployed and the self-employed under the Indira Gandhi Shehri Credit Card Yojana (IGSCCY), as part of a Covid-19 special relief package.
A recent government reply in the Assembly showed that till February 3 this year, the government had received 2.40 lakh applications, and disbursed loans to only 4,566 (or 1.82%). The goal, as stated by Gehlot, was to provide loans up to Rs 50,000 to 5 lakh people, up to March 31, 2022, with the government paying the entire interest amount. The sanction was to be given within 25 days of the application.
The government reply indicating the low disbursal came to a question asked by Congress MLA Meena Kanwar.
The circular announcing the scheme by the Finance Department, in August last year, said: “During the Covid-19 pandemic, options such as MNREGS are available in rural areas. IGSCCY is being implemented to make available employment/self employment in urban areas and to make available financial resources for needs of daily life.”
The target groups included street vendors along with other people providing essential services in the informal sector such as hairdressers, rickshaw operators, potters, cobblers, tailors, painters, plumbers and electricians.
The lending institutions could include scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks, small finance banks, cooperative banks and non banking finance companies.
The data furnished in the state government’s reply shows that the estimated number of beneficiaries under the jurisdiction of various urban local bodies across the state was 5.02 lakh.
Rani Mali, who sells vegetables from a cart in Udaipur, said she had applied for a loan under the scheme in October last year, but was yet to receive the money. Recently, she said, she received a message from the Department of Local Self Governance that the application had been forwarded to the bank concerned.
“I had thought that with the loan amount, we would expand our business, purchase more vegetables. We suffered immense losses during the pandemic and hoped that the loan would help us recover,” Mali, a mother of two, said.
Officials said the applications were pending at the banks’ end. “The scheme officially started from October last year. The corporate offices of banks map every new scheme and then the branch manager concerned gets access for the purpose of disbursal. At times it takes two-three months depending on the bank,” Bhanwar Lal Bairwa, project officer, Department of Local Self Governance, said, adding that there was a good chance that scheme would be extended beyond March 31.
In its reply to the Assembly, the government said efforts were being made for disbursal of the pending loans by holding meetings with banks and banker’s committees.