Small business owners spend 20-30% of the daily income in paying for the cart rental that costs somewhere around INR 80-100 per day while they earn around INR 400-500 per day.

The income level has come down by 25-30% Post Covid. Pre- Covid income levels were INR 35,000-40,000 per month, now it has plummeted down to INR 15,000 per month and this being the gross income, not net.

Shanthi J, age 39 (Near Swami Vivekananda Metro station) operates a tea stall in Bangalore, 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. I

Shanthi requested a loan of INR10,000 to restart her business out of which she used- INR 5000 for 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 INR10,000.

The idea came from here- to arrange carts for vyapaari’s thus bringing some relief in their otherwise hustled life.

The small business owners get into a vicious circle of debt in case they borrow from money lenders, who lend them at an exorbitant interest rate of 60-80% and they are hardly able to get out of one loan before which they have to take another loan, this takes up whatever saving they could have otherwise managed.