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By:

Sumit Ranjan Das

21 August 2024 at 4:08:59 pm

UPI Must Stay Free

AI Generated Image Yesterday, I went to my neighbourhood shop to buy aloo chop and vegetable chop to eat with muri. I reached for my phone to pay by UPI, as I do for almost everything. The shopkeeper stopped me. “This is the last time we’ll accept UPI. From tomorrow, CASH ONLY.” I didn’t argue or explain that payments up to Rs. 2,000 remain free. It would have been a waste of breath. So I let it go, but I kept thinking about it on the walk home because I think I know what he was afraid of....

UPI Must Stay Free

AI Generated Image Yesterday, I went to my neighbourhood shop to buy aloo chop and vegetable chop to eat with muri. I reached for my phone to pay by UPI, as I do for almost everything. The shopkeeper stopped me. “This is the last time we’ll accept UPI. From tomorrow, CASH ONLY.” I didn’t argue or explain that payments up to Rs. 2,000 remain free. It would have been a waste of breath. So I let it go, but I kept thinking about it on the walk home because I think I know what he was afraid of. Picture a vegetable vendor with a pushcart at the corner of your lane. Call him Ramesh. He studied up to Class 8. Two years ago, he put a QR code on his cart because someone told him one thing: “Bhaiya, UPI is free. The money comes straight to your bank.” That one sentence did more for Digital India than any seminar. No card machine, no fee, no paperwork. Now tell Ramesh that a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) may apply to specified transactions above Rs. 2,000, subject to exemptions. He won’t argue. He will put up a board: CASH ONLY. MDR is the fee a merchant pays to accept a digital payment, and UPI has been free for merchants since 2020. The new framework proposes a fee of 0.4 per cent on specified merchant transactions above Rs. 2,000, with a cap of Rs. 300 on transactions above Rs. 75,000. Payments up to Rs. 2,000 remain free. Person-to-person transfers are not covered, and under the announced plan, customers are not charged directly. On a Rs. 10,000 merchant payment, the merchant would pay Rs. 40. Small merchants receiving less than Rs. 1,00,000 a month through UPI were proposed to be exempt. One report adds that the committee was reportedly considering exempting businesses with annual turnover of up to Rs. 40 lakh. On October 13, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said the fee, due to be implemented on October 15, would be introduced immediately after Diwali, on a date to be notified separately. The decision merley postpones the fee. Consider Ramesh again. Suppose he sells Rs. 5,000 worth of vegetables a day, mostly through payments of Rs. 30 to Rs. 300. That amounts to around Rs. 1,50,000 a month, or roughly Rs. 18 lakh a year. Every one of his payments is below Rs. 2,000, so under the proposal, they remain free. But his monthly receipts exceed Rs. 1 lakh, which means he cannot simply assume that the small-merchant exemption covers him. Who will tell him? Who will explain it in Bengali, Hindi or Maithili, at his cart, in two minutes? A vendor who cannot understand the rules will choose the option that feels safest: cash. Cash is not the enemy. But for a small merchant, it also means hunting for change and losing customers who do not have it, facing the risk of theft, loss and counterfeit notes, spending time counting, storing and depositing money, and having fewer digital records to show a bank when seeking credit. “Free” does not mean UPI costs nothing to run. Security, fraud control, banking systems and customer support all require money. In March 2025, the Union Cabinet approved an incentive of Rs. 1,500 crore for low-value BHIM UPI merchant transactions for the financial year 2024–25. Genuine welfare must never be treated as a piggy bank. Every rupee, whether spent on welfare or infrastructure, should deliver greater value. Five measures would help keep UPI simple. First, person-to-person UPI transfers must remain free. Sending money to family should never come with an unexpected charge. Second, protection for small merchants must be straightforward. Thela-walas, tea stalls and kirana shops need one clear exemption, not five clever ones. Third, UPI must be funded transparently. The government and relevant institutions should publish what it costs to run the system, how much public money supports it, how much any proposed fee collects and what results follow. Fourth, the rules must be explained in local languages. A one-page notice or a short voice message through a payment app would reach Ramesh faster than a 20-page circular. Finally, the impact must be measured before any fee is extended. Changes in small-merchant acceptance and transaction volumes should guide the next step. India did not build UPI by making it clever. It built it by making it simple and free. (The writer is a Cost and Management Accountant and founder of TaxoDas. Views personal.)

Doctor-couple celebrates an ‘all-religious wedding’

Quaid Najmi
Jan 20, 2025
3 min read
all-religious wedding

Mumbai: Aiming to erase social-religious barriers, a young doctor-couple solemnized their auspicious wedding with a bonanza of blessings from multi-religious preachers, a sprinkling of IAS officers, judges, activists and orphans, setting a unique trend.


Billed as the first-of-its-kind in Maharashtra, the wedding of Dr. Maitreya Vaishali Patil, 29, (Anesthesiologist of Pen) with Dr. Aditya Nitin Mapara, 30, (Orthopedic from Mahad), has become the talk of not only Raigad but the entire state social-political spectrum.


The brainchild of the veteran Gandhian social activist Dr. Vaishali Patil and executed by her younger daughter Gargi Patil, the January 12 wedding marked the attendance of many dignitaries and bigwigs from all over the state.


They included: retired Bombay High Court judge Justice B. G. Kolse-Patil, IAS officers like Maharashtra Public Services Commission Acting Chairman Dr. Dilip Pandharpatte, Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission Secretary Nitin Patil, SHRC Registrar Judge Dr. Swarupa Dholam, President & Chancellor of Pravara Medical Trust (Deemed University) Dr. Rajendra Vikhe-Patil, besides others.


Ahead of the nuptials, the excited young couple had a brief civil marriage function and then went on for a small in-family celebration of the traditional wedding like ‘haldi’ ceremony, the ‘saat pheras’ before a ‘pandit’, et al, she added.


“The highlight was the public reception at Seesam in Pen town where the villagers and VIPs rubbed shoulders, the couple was blessed by the commoners and celebs, general merry-making and enjoyment for all,” Dr. Patil told TPV.


Discarding the practice of hiring pricey professionals/filmstars, the Maitreya-Aditya bash saw a group of orphans and tribal kids of the Ankur Trust Ashram and Child Haven Ashram presenting vibrant, colourful and rocking dance performances, winning the hearts of the invitees.


Then the kids showered flowers-petals to accord a royal welcome to the bride and groom as the gathering comprising many medicos, activists, politicians, tribals, farmers and others stood up to cheer, clap and pour their blessings to the new couple, under a chilly and starry sky.


The newly-weds also added a dash of sparkle by shaking a leg at the popular Bollywood number, “Kesariya Tera..”, evoking a thunderous standing round of applause while the kids set off noise-free fireworks.


This was followed by the spotlight event – representatives of different religions solemnly praying for the good fortune to the couple in their traditional religious styles and languages.


They comprised: Hindu Pandit Brahmesh Dharmadhikar (Vedic), Buddhist monks Bhante Aryaprajna Shakya and Bhante Ashwamedh of Navi Mumbai Vipassana Centre (in Pali language); Muslim cleric Maulana Ansar Sultani (in Urdu), Head of Raigad Deanery Fr. Rudolph Andrades SFX (in English), as the mesmerized gathering watched in pindrop silence.


In their brief remarks, the holy representatives expressed their pleasure at participating in such a rare wedding, while the Maulana stressed the need for such innovative marriages across society.


Later, Kolse-Patil, Pandharpatte, Dholam, Patil, Vikhe-Patil and others administered a courtly ‘Oath of gender equality, religious harmony and mutual partnership’ to the couple with the guests as witnesses.


The couple also broke ground by donating all the wedding gifts received in cash or kind to the Ashrams for their welfare activities.


Dr. Patil explained that she hailed from a family teeming with mixed-marriages - both inter-caste or inter-religious alliances - including her own with a Tamilian Christian Raj Anthony.


“The marriage of Maitreya-Aditya seeks to stress on the need for social, caste, or communal harmony, and unity of the minds in the current times where the democratic space is shrinking rapidly,” averred Dr. Patil.

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