However, five Congress MPs, P Chidambaram, Manish Tewari, Gaurav Gogoi, Kishori Lal and K Gopinath, supported a tiered Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) and revenue framework for UPI in Parliament.
Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi criticised the Centre over its decision to “impose” fees on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions above Rs 2,000.
On Wednesday, leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) rejected Rahul Gandhi’s concerns over UPI charges, as well as his allegation that the decision was taken under pressure from the United States. No dissent was recorded in the published minutes. The Committee observed that, although statutory provisions now allow for a calibrated Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on high-value transactions, any delay in notifying and implementing the framework could leave payment service providers overly reliant on inadequate subsidies. They termed the allegation baseless and defended the Union government’s decision. “Rahul Gandhi’s allegation that this step was taken under US pressure is completely baseless. Rahul Gandhi is adept at spreading falsehoods and habitually makes misleading claims on various issues.
Because of pressure from the US, saying there was no connection between the two, union Minister Ramdas Athawale dismissed Rahul Gandhi’s allegation that the decision was taken. 5 Congress MPs on ccommittee that backed MDR framework The five Congress MPs, including former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and former Union Minister Manish Tewari, were members of the committee and were present in Parliament on August 12 when the report was adopted.
As per the committee, “establishing a viable revenue mechanism is critical to ensuring that the UPI ecosystem achieves financial sustainability without perpetually straining the Government exchequer”. This, it said, could undermine essential investments in cybersecurity, fraud prevention and digital payment network infrastructure. America has nothing to do with this decision,” Athawale said.
