RBI extends PIDF scheme to street vendors under PM SVANidhi programme

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Reserve Bank on Thursday extended the scheme for encouraging deployment of Point of Sale (PoS) infrastructure to street vendors covered under the PM SVANidhi programme in tier 1 and 2 centres.

The Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) scheme, with a corpus of Rs 345 crore, envisages creating 30 lakh new touch points every year for digital payments in tier-3 to tier-6 centres. The scheme, operationalised in January this year, has now been extended to select street vendors in tier 1 and 2 centres.

Launched in June 2020, the PM Street Vendor's AatmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme is aimed at helping street vendors impacted by the coronavirus pandemic to resume their livelihood activities. It facilitates collateral-free working capital loans of up to Rs 10,000 of one-year tenure to approximately 50 lakh street vendors.

In a statement on Thursday, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said it has now decided to include street vendors identified as part of the PM SVANidhi scheme in tier-1 and tier-2 centres as beneficiaries under the PIDF scheme.

As hitherto, the street vendors in tier-3 to tier-6 centres will continue to be covered under the scheme, it added.

"This decision to expand the targeted beneficiaries under the PIDF scheme will provide fillip to the Reserve Bank's efforts towards promoting digital transactions at the grass-root level," the central bank said.

Out of PIDF's total corpus of Rs 345 crore, RBI's contribution is Rs 250 crore and Rs 95 crore is from major authorised card networks in the country.

PIDF seeks to increase payments acceptance infrastructure by adding 30 lakh touch points -- 10 lakh physical and 20 lakh digital payment acceptance devices every year.