Jammu Municipal Corporation has intensified its drive to register street vendors under PM Street Vendor’s ‘Atma Nirbhar Nidhi’.The PM Street Vendors’ Atma Nirbhar Nidhi is a special micro- credit facility for street vendors with a provision for facilitating them working capital loan up to Rs 10,000 to enable them to revive their small business post Covid unlock.The registered street vendors can avail the facility of capital loan under PM SVANidhi by going to the nearest bank where they can apply manually or can opt for online application on PM SVANidhi website.As per the JMC communiqué, the Commissioner JMC, Avny Lavasa, reviewed the progress under the scheme here at a meeting held on the directions of Mayor, JMC, Chander Mohan Gupta and Deputy Mayor, Adv. Purnima Sharma.Reviewing the status of ongoing survey, the Commissioner JMC informed that the ward wise teams constituted for conducting the survey of street vendors and making them aware how to apply for working capital loan under PM SVANidhi is going on in full swing.While highlighting the benefit of the micro-credit facility for street vendors recently announced by the Government of India, the Municipal Commissioner said that street vendors represent a very important constituent of the urban informal economy and play a significant role in ensuring availability of the goods and services at affordable rates at the door-step of the city dewellers .They are known by different names like vendors, hawkers, thelewala, rehriwala etc.“The COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdowns have adversely impacted the livelihoods of street vendors. They usually work with small capital base and might have consumed the same during the lockdown. Therefore, there is an urgent need to provide credit for working capital to street vendors to resume their business” the Commissioner added.It was informed that at present only 470 street vendors are registered with JMC and to cover remaining, the Corporation has started a mega drive to identify and register the left out street vendors.“It is a golden opportunity to get them covered under ongoing survey through concerned area Sanitary Officer/Sanitary Inspector/Sanitary Supervisor/officials designated for the same”, the JMC commissioner said.She also stressed that if any street vendors is facing any difficulty in this regard he/she can approach ACR section of JMC for the redressal of the same.