New Delhi, 16 September (H.S.): The Congress on Wednesday criticised the Central government’s decision to open the way for imposing charges on merchant payments exceeding Rs. 2,000 made through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The party alleged that the government, under pressure from American companies, was placing an additional burden on the pockets of ordinary citizens, young people and traders. The Congress demanded that the decision be withdrawn immediately and that UPI be kept completely free of charge, as it was earlier.

Supriya Shrinate, Congress chairperson of Social Media and Digital Platforms, said at a press conference at the party headquarters here on Wednesday that under the government’s new decision, a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) of 0.4 per cent would be levied on every merchant UPI payment exceeding Rs. 2,000. She said the government’s argument that the charge would be paid by merchants rather than customers was completely untenable, as traders would ultimately pass the burden on to the public by increasing the prices of goods and services.

Shrinate claimed that India records 6.048 billion person-to-merchant (P2M) UPI transactions exceeding Rs. 2,000 in value, with a combined value of Rs. 66.22 lakh crore. She said PhonePe holds a 48.9 per cent share of India’s digital payments market, while Google Pay accounts for 37.7 per cent. Walmart of the United States holds a 72 per cent stake in PhonePe, while Google Pay is wholly owned by US-based Google LLC. She alleged that the earnings of these foreign companies and the valuation of PhonePe ahead of its proposed initial public offering (IPO) were being boosted by taking money out of the pockets of people already struggling with inflation.

She rejected the government’s claim that charges were necessary to make UPI financially sustainable. She said approximately Rs. 20,700 crore is required annually to operate the entire UPI ecosystem smoothly. In 2025-26, the Reserve Bank of India transferred a surplus of Rs. 2.87 lakh crore to the Central government, while listed banks recorded profits of Rs. 4.11 lakh crore and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) reported a pre-tax surplus of Rs. 1,888 crore. She said the entire cost of the UPI ecosystem could have been covered with just 7.2 per cent of the surplus received from the RBI, but the government chose instead to create a mechanism to recover the cost from the public.

She alleged that the decision had been implemented after misleading Parliament and the public. She said that on August 6 and 10, the Finance Minister had told Parliament that no final decision or framework had been determined regarding MDR, but on September 14, a notification was quietly issued, clearing the way for the imposition of charges.

She said the foundations of UPI had been laid during the Congress-led UPA government, while institutions and mechanisms such as the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) had also been developed during the Congress's tenure.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar