61,000 ENROL FOR FINANCIAL AID TO VENDORS

LUCKNOW: As many as 61,000 people have approached the district administration here to get themselves enrolled for the UP government’s financial assistance scheme for Covid-19 affected street vendors and others engaged in traditional professions, including milkmen, washermen, small-time caterers, cobblers and others.

Lucknow municipal commissioner said Ajay Dwivedi said, “So far, around 61,000 beneficiaries have got themselves enrolled for the scheme under which they would be given financial help of Rs 1000 monthly to assist daily wagers, street vendors and others engaged in small professions in fulfilling their financial needs in times of pandemic.”

Arvind Sahu is among the vendors to have sought help.

“Unlike the ones who own big shops and swanky showrooms, we are small street vendors who run makeshift shop at weekly markets. The lockdown and government restrictions have left us on the verge of bankruptcy. We are in dire need of help,” Sahu said. He used to run a makeshift garment shop at the weekly market that comes up on Tuesdays at Bara Birwa in Alambagh.

Among the 61,000, around 56,000 are street vendors. The remaining are cobblers, washer men, milkmen, daily wagers and so on. The municipal commissioner said the data of the beneficiaries was also being uploaded on the website www.rahat.up. nic.in. Chief secretary Rajendra Kumar Tiwari, while directing all divisional commissioners and district magistrates (DMs) to identify such people and to help them at the earliest, had announced financial assistance of Rs 1000 to the affected persons.

The UP government had also announced three months’ free ration to all of them. Besides, he had directed to form a district level committee that would include the chief development officer (CDO), additional district magistrate (ADM), chief treasury officer (CTO), municipal commissioner, the district supply officer (DSO), the city magistrate and others to oversee the relief work.

THE DATA OF BENEFICIARIES WAS ALSO BEING UPLOADED ON THE WEBSITE