Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the INDI alliance partners have come together on a programme for bad governance, corruption and to spread anti-nation agenda, while Modi stands for the nation’s development through people’s welfare, uprooting appeasement and to make India one of the largest economic powers in the world.

He was addressing a massive gathering of PM SVANidhi beneficiaries at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here after distributing loans under the scheme to one lakh street vendors (SVs), including 5,000 vendors from Delhi, across the country.

The Prime Minister said while he was trying to make the lives of the poor and middle classes better, the INDI alliance leaders have attacked him saying Modi has no family. For Modi, he said, every family of the country is his family, and that is why the whole nation is saying, “I am Modi’s family.”

An alliance between dreams of the common man and Modi’s “sankalp” (resolution) is a guarantee for a glorious future of the country, he said.

The Prime Minister said lakhs of street vendors from several hundred cities in the country had joined the programme through video conference. “Today’s function is dedicated to them. We saw what they meant for us during the pandemic,” he said. Mr Modi congratulated residents of Delhi after laying foundation stones for two new Delhi Metro lines.

He said one lakh vendors were getting money transfers in their bank accounts and handed over cheques to five representative vendors. “Our cities have lakhs of people running their business on pavement trolleys. Their shops may be small but their dreams are big,” he said.

The Prime Minister said the previous governments never cared for them, they suffered insults, they needed money and had to take loans on high interest rates. If they delayed the repayments, they were insulted and had to pay higher interest rate. They had no accounts in banks, could not even enter them, and there was no question of their getting loans earlier.

The banks asked for guarantees, if they sought loans, he said. They had no record of doing trade. In such a situation, none could make a living and progress in life, he said. The earlier governments never heard their problems or took steps to alleviate their problems.

The Prime Minister said “I have also come out of poverty, your Sevak (servant), and therefore I have taken care of people who were never taken note of, and I served them. Those who had nothing for guarantees; I had instructed banks not to worry, I take their guarantee. I am proud of this. I have seen the dishonesty of the big, and also the honesty of small people,” he said.

He said the PMSVANidhi gives loans at low rates and on Modi’s guarantee; the first loan is Rs 10,000, the second of Rs 20,000, if repayment is on time. After that Rs 50,000 loans are given if the vendors adopt digital methods of business. The scheme has helped the vendors – 62 lakh in the country so far, and loans of Rs 11,000 crore have been given.

This is not a small amount, he said, and they are returning the money on time. Half of the loan beneficiaries are women. The scheme was started during Corona, none imagined how big it would grow, and many said it would not benefit much. A recent study was eye-opening, he said and showed incomes of the vendors had increased. The digital records helped in bank loans; and digital business brought Rs 1200 to them every year as reward.

The street vendors in the cities have been linked with other schemes of free ration, free treatment and free cooking gas. New ration cards was a challenge, and so Modi took steps to make it easy, and started the One nation One ration card scheme. Now one card will get people ration anywhere in the country, he said.

Out of the total pucca houses built for the poor in the country, one crore are for the urban poor. A scheme has been started for solar panels on roof tops to provide free power up to 300 units, an amount of Rs 75,000 crores will be spent on this, he said.

The middle classes are also being given subsidy of Rs 50,000 in their housing and 20 lakh houses have been covered by this. Traffic problems are being sorted with electric buses, while Delhi Metro lines have been doubled, the Prime Minister said.