WHY IN THE NEWS?

• The Reserve Bank of India has announced to include street vendors of tier-1 and tier-2 centres, identified as part of the PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi Scheme) as beneficiaries under the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Scheme.
• Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Scheme was launched by RBI to encourage deployment of Points of Sale (PoS) infrastructure (both physical and digital modes) in tier-3 to tier-6 centres and northeastern states.
• So now RBI has specifically allowed street vendors of Tier-1 and Tier-2 centres, to be part of PIDF Scheme. The street vendors in tier-3 to tier-6 centres will continue to be covered under the Scheme by default. PIDF presently has a corpus of Rs. 345 crore.