Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme

What is the Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme?

Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme; known in Rajasthan as the Indira Gandhi Shahri Credit Card Yojana, is a scheme of the Local Self Government Department, Government of Rajasthan, that gave urban street vendors and small self-employed workers an interest-free loan of up to Rs 50,000 without collateral and without a guarantor. It was announced in the Rajasthan state budget for 2021-22 and rolled out through the state's urban local bodies with e-Mitra as the application channel.

Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme was built around a simple diagnosis. A vegetable seller, a cobbler or a rickshaw puller in Jaipur, Jodhpur or Kota typically needs working capital in the range of a few thousand to fifty thousand rupees, has no property to pledge, and no formal income record a bank can score. That person borrows from a moneylender at rates that can run to several per cent a month. The scheme replaced that borrowing with a bank loan on which the state government pays the interest, so the borrower repays only the principal.

By March 2023, official figures reported through the state government put the scale at over 1.82 lakh beneficiaries and roughly Rs 481 crore of loans disbursed, an average ticket size in the Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 range rather than the full Rs 50,000, which is what small urban trades actually absorb.

Key features

• Loan limit of Rs 50,000, disbursed through participating banks.
• Zero interest to the borrower; the Rajasthan government meets the interest.
• No collateral, no guarantor.
• Repayment period of 12 months.
• Delivered as a credit card issued after sanction, with the loan credited to the applicant's bank account.

What is the current status of the Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme?

Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme was extended by the Rajasthan government in April 2023 for one more year, to 31 March 2024, and the eligible age band was widened at the same time from 18-40 years to 18-60 years. No further extension of the scheme's operating period has been published on an official Rajasthan government portal since that date.

Readers should treat this page as a record of the scheme as notified rather than as confirmation that fresh applications are being accepted today. The Rajasthan government that took office in December 2023 renamed or restructured several urban schemes carrying the same name prefix. The Indira Rasoi Yojana became the Shri Annapurna Rasoi Yojana, and the Indira Gandhi Shahari Rozgar Guarantee Yojana was reissued as the Mukhyamantri Shahari Rozgar Guarantee Yojana. Before spending time on an application, ask your municipal corporation, municipal council or municipality what the current urban credit scheme is called and whether the credit card component is still open.

Who is eligible for the Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme?

You can apply if:

• You are a permanent resident of Rajasthan and live within the area of a municipal corporation, municipal council or municipality.
• You are between 18 and 60 years of age, following the April 2023 revision of the original 18-40 band.
• You work in an eligible urban trade: street vending, hawking, rickshaw pulling, barbering, cobbling, tailoring, pottery, masonry, carpentry, electrical or plumbing work, washing and dyeing, and comparable small self-employed occupations; or you are an unemployed urban youth starting such a trade.
• Your family income falls within the limit set by the scheme; state material describes the target group as households earning up to about Rs 50,000 a month.
• You hold a Jan Aadhaar card and a bank account.

You cannot apply / are not eligible if:

• You live in a rural area outside any urban local body — the scheme is urban-only, and rural applicants are directed to other credit routes.
• You already have an outstanding loan under the same scheme that has not been repaid.
• You are a defaulter on an earlier government-subsidised loan.
• You cannot show residence within a Rajasthan urban local body, or have no Jan Aadhaar record in the state.
• You are seeking finance for a business well above the small self-employment scale the scheme was designed for.

How to apply for the Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme

1. Collect the documents first, Jan Aadhaar card, Aadhaar card, proof of urban residence, bank passbook, a passport-size photograph, and your street vending certificate if you hold one.
2. Go to an e-Mitra kiosk in your ward, or sign in at the e-Mitra portal at emitra.rajasthan.gov.in with your SSO ID. Search for the Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card / Shahri Credit Card service.
3. Fill the application with your personal details, the trade you follow, your monthly income, the loan amount you need up to Rs 50,000, and your bank account details. Complete Aadhaar-based verification.
4. Submit and keep the receipt. The e-Mitra operator gives an application number, this is the only way to track the case later.
5. Wait for urban local body verification. Your municipal body checks the residence and trade details and forwards the recommended case to the bank. The scheme's published service standard was sanction within 25 days of application.
6. Collect the credit card and confirm the credit. After sanction the credit card is issued, and the loan amount is credited to your bank account. Update your passbook to confirm.

How to check your Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card application status

1. Sign in at emitra.rajasthan.gov.in with your SSO ID and open the transaction or application history for the service.
2. Quote your application number at the e-Mitra kiosk where you applied.
3. Ask the urban local body, the municipal corporation, council or municipality office; whether the case has been verified and forwarded to a bank.
4. Once forwarded, follow up at the branch that received the case, since the sanction and disbursal step sits with the bank, not the municipality.

Why Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card applications get rejected

• Residence outside an urban local body area, which is the single most common ground for rejection.
• Age outside the notified band at the date of application.
• Jan Aadhaar and Aadhaar name mismatch, which stops verification.
• Existing default on a previous government-subsidised loan.
• Duplicate application by another member of the same Jan Aadhaar family for the same purpose.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded, so the disbursal fails even after sanction.

A residence or name mismatch is fixed by updating the Jan Aadhaar record at an e-Mitra kiosk and re-applying. A default has to be cleared with the lending bank before any fresh subsidised loan can move.

What the scheme costs the borrower

Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme charges the borrower no interest. The Rajasthan government meets the interest as a subvention paid to the lending bank. There is no processing fee levied by the state, and no guarantor commission, because there is no guarantor. The only legitimate charge in the whole process is the small government-notified e-Mitra service fee for filing the application.

No bank official, municipal employee or agent may charge for "getting the loan sanctioned". If someone asks for a cut of the loan, that is corruption, not a scheme charge, and it should be reported.

Where to complain about the Indira Gandhi Urban Credit Card Scheme

• Urban local body office: commissioner or executive officer of your municipal corporation, council or municipality, for verification delays.
• The lending bank's branch manager, and then the bank's grievance cell, for sanction and disbursal delays after the case has been forwarded.
• Rajasthan Sampark helpline 181 or the Rajasthan Sampark portal, which issues a tracking number for a written complaint against any state department.
• Local Self Government Department, Government of Rajasthan, as the administrative department for the scheme.