AMARAVATI: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday launched the third phase of the Jagananna Thodu scheme under which an interest-free loan of Rs 10,000 is provided to 5.10 lakh small and petty vendors at an expenditure of Rs 510.46 crore and another 16.16 crore as interest reimbursement totaling the amount to Rs 526.62 crore.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that the scheme is aimed to benefit the small and petty vendors, artisans from the unorganised sector by providing working capital and financial assistance to support their businesses. He said so far, in the three spells, 14,16,091 people benefited through the scheme, where the government had spent Rs 1416 crore, besides interest repayment of Rs 32.5 crore.

Terming the small scale vendors as essential service providers, the Chief Minister said that the government is relieving them from paying heavy interests, by facilitating loans from banks and upon timely repayment of loans, all the interest amount shall be reimbursed directly to the beneficiaries’ accounts, and further, they will be eligible to take the next loan. He said that the scheme is being implemented twice a year and urged the beneficiaries to repay their loans on time to avoid overdue and NPA, which could hamper the chances of availing fresh loans.

Further, the Chief Minister said that people who were left out can either contact the volunteers or visit the village/ward secretariat to avail of the scheme and can call on 08912890525 to get their queries answered. He said that 82 percent of the vendors across the country have lost their income due to Covid, but in State, the government stood by the downtrodden communities and credited Rs 1.29 lakh crore through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) into the beneficiaries accounts without resorting to any sort of corruption. With the measures taken by the State government, Andhra Pradesh stood in a better place than other states in the country, as per the report given by Dun and Bradstreet Company.

Minister for Municipal and Urban Development Botsa Satyanarayana, Chief Secretary Dr. Sameer Sharma, Special CS for Municipal and Urban Development Y Srilakshmi, Special CS for Housing Ajay Jain, Revenue department Special CS Rajat Bhargava and other officials were present at the event.