The Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Scheme was operationalised by the Reserve Bank in January 2021, for a period of three years. The objective of the scheme was to encourage deployment of payment acceptance infrastructure such as physical Point of Sale (PoS) terminals, Quick Response (QR) codes, in tier-3 to tier-6 centres, North Eastern states and Union Territories (U.T.s) of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. From August 26, 2021, beneficiaries of PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi Scheme) in tier-1 and tier-2 centres are also covered. 2. As announced in the Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies released with the bi-monthly Monetary Policy Statement 2023-24 on October 06, 2023, the Reserve Bank has now decided to extend the PIDF Scheme by a further period of two years, i.e., upto December 31, 2025. To widen the scope of beneficiaries and acceptance infrastructure, following enhancements are being made: - Beneficiaries of PM Vishwakarma Scheme in all centres have been included as merchants under the PIDF Scheme.
- Sound Box devices and Aadhaar-enabled biometric devices are eligible for claim of subsidy under the Scheme.
- Subsidy for special focus areas, viz., North Eastern states and U.T.s of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, has been made uniform at 90% of the cost of device, irrespective of the type of device.
3. The revised PIDF Scheme is issued today. 4. The corpus of PIDF stands at ₹1026.37 crore as on November 30, 2023, as per the following details: | Source | Amount (in ₹ crore) | | I. Contribution from stakeholders (+) | 1467.19 | | I.1. Reserve Bank of India | 250.00 | | I.2. Authorised Card Networks | 474.48 | | I.3. Card Issuing Banks | 742.71 | | II. Interest earned (+) | 100.94 | | III. Subsidy pay-out (-) | 541.73 | | Total (I + II - III) | 1026.37 | 5. The number of payment acceptance devices deployed under the PIDF Scheme as on November 30, 2023, is: | Location | Physical Devices* | Digital Devices** | | Tier 3 & 4 Centres | 3,99,089 | 91,99,972 | | Tier 5 & 6 Centres | 3,23,236 | 1,47,48,608 | Special Focus Areas
(North-eastern States and UTs of J&K and Ladakh) | 1,05,268 | 19,64,175 | Tier 1 & 2 Centres
(PM SVANidhi Scheme) | 308 | 12,83,147 | | Total | 8,27,901 | 2,71,95,902 | *Physical devices include PoS, mPoS (mobile PoS), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), etc.
**Digital devices include inter-operable QR code-based payments such as UPI QR, Bharat QR, etc. | (Yogesh Dayal)
Chief General Manager Press Release: 2023-2024/1571 | |