A pilot run of the ‘special drive for Digital on-boarding of street vendors under PMSVANidhi scheme was launched, Sept. 9, jointly by Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology(MeitY) and Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in a virtual event. Senior officers from MeitY and MoHUA also attended the event virtually. The drive is in line with Prime Minister Modi’s vision of  “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas.”

The special drive aims to accelerate on-boarding of street vendors on the UPI QR code and handhold them to start accepting/making digital payment transactions. Five major aggregators including Paytm, Phone Pe, Bharat Pe, Mswipe and Aceware have agreed to participate in 45 days special drive for digitally onboarding the street vendors with BHIM-UPI QR code on pro-bono basis.

The drive will cover 223 cities across the country with around 8,68,184 street vendors to be onboarded under various urban local bodies. Digital Payment Aggregators will educate the street vendors about the benefits of digital payments such as convenience, increased operational efficiency, seamless transfer of funds, cost saving, transparency and security. They will also hand hold the street vendors by performing penny drop transaction and any further support that is required to accept/pay digitally.

Digital footprints including  digital payment transactions and loan repayment data under the scheme would help in credit profiling  of street vendors. This will enable inclusion of street vendors in the formal credit ecosystem, and help in driving financial inclusion of unorganized sector.

This will enable inclusion of Street Vendors in the formal credit ecosystem, and help in driving financial inclusion of the unorganized sector.

In recent years, a significant rise in use of digital payments has been observed.Contactless digital payment modes including BHIM UPI, Rupay contactless etc,  has significant role to facilitate social distancing, for prevention of Covid-19. The Covid-19 pandemic has catalyzed behavioral changes in citizens for adoption of digital payments, as reflected in the tremendous growth in BHIM UPI transactions from  99.95 crore in April 2020 to  355.55 crore in August-2021.  During the coronavirus crisis, digital payments, particularly BHIM UPI has played a significant role in keeping economy running by supporting commerce and business.