Bangalore, November 12, 2020: Shanthi J, 39 years of age operates a tea stall in Bangalore, near Swami Vivekananda Metro Station, survived the peak of the pandemic by an INR 5000/- grant provided by Udhyam. Further Udhyam helped her secure microcredit to restart her business. When Udhyam tried to re-evaluate her pay-back capability, they observed she paid around 1/4th, i.e, INR 80 of her daily earnings as cart rent. Shanthi requested a loan of INR 10,000 to restart her business out of which she used INR 5000 for a used cart and INR 5000 for mineral water business. It is at this time Udhyam learned about the issue of cart rental. She ensured she can pay INR 100 per day for 100 days and repay the loan of INR 10,000.
The idea came from here to arrange carts for vyapaari’s thus bringing some relief in their otherwise hustled life.
In an endeavour to help vyapaaris lead a debt-free life, Udhyam Learning Foundation (ULF), an organisation focused towards enabling, uplifting, and scaling up individuals to meet their entrepreneurial aspirations, is helping street vendors revive their operations amidst the ongoing pandemic.
For the same, Udhyam Vyapaar, a ULF programme focussed on mentoring existing micro and small-scale entrepreneurs to scale and succeed – has rolled out a campaign this Diwali, ‘Donate a cart & uplift small businesses’, targeting the street vendors of Bangalore. Through this campaign, ULF aims to support and help these micro-entrepreneurs tide over the impact faced due to the lockdown and restore their businesses. The going rate of owning a new cart ranges between INR 15,000 to INR 20,000/-, whereas a second-hand cart ranges from INR 5000 to INR 7000. Through this campaign, Udhyam Vyapaar’s target is to facilitate 100 pushcarts + 100 stools to these street vendors.
While these street vendors are keen to restart their businesses, they still lack the means to sufficient capital due to months of inactivity and having to survive on their meagre income. Most of these street vendors who used to earn around INR 35,000-40,000 per month pre-COVID are now incurring heavy losses due to the ongoing pandemic and their income level has come down by 25-30 per cent. Instead of routing street vendors to borrow from local money lenders with exorbitant interest rates of 60-80 per cent, Udhyam Vyapaar has decided to create a lending option directly to these small business owners with zero per cent interest. Through this lending option, vyapaaris have the flexibility to pay back to Udhyam Vyapaar INR 100 per day over a period of 100 days.
How you can help:
The ‘Donate a cart & uplift small businesses’ campaign is live and accepting donations via Give India:
Donate a cart & help street side vendors from the burden of exorbitant daily rentals during pandemic
