By Rajnish Singh New Delhi, Oct 7 : The central government is planning to expand the Prime Minister Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme through its integration with several banks, that may include those from the private sectors too. As part of the plan, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs officials have been directed to work on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to integrate PM SVANidhi portal with various banks to ease and expedite the sanctioning of loans and the disbursement through the scheme. The Ministry is now planning to hold consultations with public and private sector banks later this month so that maximum persons could avail of PM SVANidhi benefits easily and quickly. As part of the avowed objective, Ministry Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra has launched an Application Programming Interface (API) to ensure integration between the portals of PM SVANidhi and State Bank of India (SBI). This integration will facilitate seamless flow of data between PM SVANidhi portal and SBI's eMudra Portal in a secure environment to expedite loan sanctioning and disbursement, which will benefit street vendors seeking working capital loans under the scheme. "The Ministry will explore similar integration with other banks as well, for which a consultative meeting will be held shortly," said a Ministry statement. The Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry is implementing PM SVANidhi Scheme since June 1, 2020, that aims to provide affordable working capital loans to street vendors to resume their livelihood otherwise adversely affected by over 68-day countrywide lockdown to contain coronavirus pandemic. The scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh street vendors operating on or before March 24 this year in urban areas, including those from surrounding peri-urban or rural areas. Under the scheme, the vendors can avail working capital loans of up to Rs 10,000 each, which is repayable in monthly instalments in one year. On timely or early repayment, an interest subsidy at 7 per cent per annum is credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) on quarterly basis. There is no penalty on early repayment of loan. The scheme promotes digital transactions through cash-back incentives up to Rs 1,200 per annum. As of October 6, over 20.50 lakh loan applications have been received under the PM SVANidhi scheme, of which over 7.85 lakh cases have been sanctioned and amounts disbursed in over 2.40 lakh cases. (Rajnish Singh can be contacted at rajnish.s@ians.in) /IANS