More than 1.75 lakh street vendors in Hyderabad–Secunderabad have received collateral-free loans under the PM SVANidhi scheme — and nearly two-thirds of them are women. Union Coal and Mines Minister and BJP Telangana president G. Kishan Reddy shared the milestone figures on Monday, 19 October 2026, underlining how the Centre's flagship urban micro-credit programme is reshaping livelihoods in the twin cities.

What the numbers say about Hyderabad's street-vendor push

Kishan Reddy's post — written in Telugu — laid out the scheme's progress in the twin cities as of 30 September 2026. More than 1,96,820 applications had been received; of those, 1,75,120-plus loans were sanctioned. In total, ₹311.02 crore has been disbursed — all without a rupee of collateral demanded from borrowers. The minister noted that approximately 66 percent of beneficiaries are women, a figure that reflects the scheme's deliberate gender-inclusion design.

The post credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'visionary leadership' (dārśanika nāyakatvam) for the scheme's reach, framing SVANidhi as an instrument of self-reliance for small traders who have historically been locked out of formal credit.

PM SVANidhi: from COVID relief to urban financial inclusion backbone

PM SVANidhi — formally, the Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi — was launched in June 2020 as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat economic package. Its original mandate was to extend working-capital loans to street vendors whose incomes had been wiped out by COVID-19 lockdowns. The scheme provides initial loans of ₹10,000, with higher-tier credit available to vendors who repay on time, creating a structured ladder out of informal moneylending.

The absence of collateral is the scheme's central promise. For a pheriwaala or a roadside food vendor with no property deed to pledge, that single feature is the difference between access and exclusion. Hyderabad–Secunderabad, one of India's largest urban agglomerations, has a dense informal trading economy — making it a bellwether for how well the scheme translates from policy paper to pavement-level impact.

Why 66% women beneficiaries is the headline inside the headline

The gender breakdown deserves its own moment. Roughly two in three loan recipients in the twin cities being women points to either a deliberately targeted outreach strategy or an organic reflection of who actually runs street-side businesses — often women selling vegetables, flowers, or cooked food as the household's primary earner. Either way, the figure aligns with the broader push across central welfare schemes to close gender gaps in formal financial access.

Kishan Reddy, as Telangana BJP president, has a clear political interest in highlighting central-scheme performance in a state governed by the opposition — but the data points, if borne out by official disbursal records, speak to real credit flowing to real vendors on real streets.

With over ₹311 crore already out the door in just one urban cluster, the question now is whether loan-repayment rates and credit-cycle uptake will sustain the programme's momentum — and whether the Centre extends SVANidhi's scope as urban informal employment remains one of India's most critical, and most underfunded, economic frontiers.