Kishan asks vendors to apply for loan post-Covid
Union minister of state for home G. Kishan Reddy on Saturday asked street vendors in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), to apply for the loan of `10,000 to start their business post-Covid-19 lockdown, if they had not done so previously, as the government was making arrangements to extend the last date.
Kishan Reddy was speaking after reviewing development projects and schemes including PM Street Vendors Atmanirbhar Nidhi Scheme (PMSVANidhi), Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSC) under PM Awas Yojana, with officials here at CGO Towers, Kavadiguda.
He also reviewed the arrangements for procurement of cotton with officials of the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and Markfed, Nafed and the state agriculture department.
Addressing the media, Kishan Reddy said that the GHMC area has about 2 lakh street vendors of whom only 1 lakh had applied for loans. He said vendors require an identity card from the GHMC to avail the loan, but the corporation had issued only 30,000 of them. The minister instructed GHMC officials to speed up the process.
The minister said that as part of the Centre’s CLSC under the PM Awas Yojana to provide housing for all, one lakh applications were pending with the GHMC since 2018. He asked GHMC officials to clear all the applications.
Kishan Reddy said that the Centre had sanctioned 168 wellness centres (Basti Dawakhanas) to Telangana state and these were being established across the state to extend healthcare facilities to the people in urban areas.
The Centre with the help of the Telangana state government will ensure that cotton procurement centres are established by October
10, by converting over
325 ginning mills into procurement centres to speed up the process.
Kishan Reddy wanted the state government to place a sufficient number of moisture measuring meters at each centre to help farmers to complete their transaction in a short period of time.
The minister said, “there is an unmoved stock of over 4 lakh bales of cotton because of the lockdown. Hence, we must increase the number of warehouses to store the incoming cotton till the market situation improves.”
He assured the farmers that within a week the amount will be deposited into their bank accounts under the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme.
Kishan Reddy explained that several factors including low production and shipment problems affected the imports of urea.