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Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 10:20:16 am

Fee Signal

The government’s decision to create a legal framework for levying charges on UPI transactions has understandably triggered concern, even though it insists that ordinary users and small merchants will continue to enjoy free payments. The proposed amendment does not impose a fee on UPI today. But it removes the statutory barrier to one being imposed in the future, making the government’s reassurance less than the final word. The government argues that this is a measure for UPI’s long-term...

Fee Signal

The government’s decision to create a legal framework for levying charges on UPI transactions has understandably triggered concern, even though it insists that ordinary users and small merchants will continue to enjoy free payments. The proposed amendment does not impose a fee on UPI today. But it removes the statutory barrier to one being imposed in the future, making the government’s reassurance less than the final word. The government argues that this is a measure for UPI’s long-term sustainability. The world’s largest real-time payments system, which processed 2,366 crore transactions worth Rs. 29.9 lakh crore in July alone, cannot indefinitely depend on subsidies as transaction volumes, cybersecurity requirements and infrastructure costs rise. A nominal Merchant Discount Rate on larger merchant transactions, it says, would help create a more sustainable ecosystem without burdening ordinary users. That argument has merit. But so does the concern that a payment system which became a national habit precisely because it was cheap and frictionless should not slowly acquire a price tag. Once the legal machinery for charging exists, there is no guarantee that the boundary between large merchants and small ones, or between merchants and consumers, will remain permanently fixed. The Finance Minister has clarified that any Merchant Discount Rate will apply only to a limited set of merchant transactions above a threshold and will be nominal, well below card-payment rates. The details will eventually be decided by the UPI and Services Steering Committee headed by the National Payments Corporation of India. In other words, there is no charge on the table for the ordinary UPI user today. But there is now a legal mechanism for charges to be introduced tomorrow. That is precisely why any alarm, though exaggerated, cannot simply be dismissed. The government, through its clarification, has reassured that UPI’s free-to-consumer model remains intact. The important issue is whether its financing model can evolve without undermining the habits that made it revolutionary. UPI succeeded partly because it made digital payments cheaper and simpler than alternatives. There is also a larger principle at stake. UPI is not merely another commercial payments platform. It is the product of public investment, regulatory architecture and private innovation. The state should therefore be wary of treating its sustainability as an ordinary market problem. The sensible answer lies between free-for-all subsidies and indiscriminate fees: transparent thresholds, genuinely low MDRs, strong protection for small merchants and an absolute firewall around ordinary consumers. The government should publish the economic case for any future charge, including its effect on merchants and consumers. UPI was built on trust as much as technology. The government is right to protect its remarkable achievement. It should remember that keeping UPI free is not merely a political promise. It is part of the product.

The Jantar Mantar Protest: Who’s Really in the Crowd?

Are these protests still about NEET aspirants—or have they evolved into a broader political movement?

Every few months, Jantar Mantar becomes the centre of yet another protest. This time, it’s a CJP-led demonstration centred around NEET and demands for education reforms. But if you spend some time there, a question naturally comes to mind: is this really a student protest anymore?


Most genuine NEET aspirants are either preparing for their exams, waiting for counselling, or focused on securing admissions. It seems unlikely that many of them would have the time to remain at a protest site for days or weeks. For most students, this is a crucial period that demands their complete attention. Admission decisions can shape the course of their academic and professional lives. Instead, many observers have pointed to a crowd that appears noticeably older than the students the movement claims to represent. That, in turn, raises questions about who is sustaining the demonstrations on a day-to-day basis. It also prompts a debate over whether the composition of the crowd reflects the movement's stated objective.


Another aspect that raises questions is how the messaging often evolves. What begins as a protest over NEET and examination reforms sometimes expands to include issues that appear unrelated to the original cause. These include Article 370, LGBTQ rights, demands surrounding Umar Khalid’s release, or broader political slogans. Such shifts naturally lead people to ask whether the protest has remained focused on students’ concerns. Or has it become a platform for a much wider political agenda? For many outside observers, the transition from a single-issue campaign to a broader collection of political demands makes it harder to identify the movement's central objective.


There have also been reports and social media videos alleging the use of slogans that go beyond the stated objective of education reform. These include calls involving Parliament and references to developments in Nepal. While I have not independently verified these claims, they deserve careful scrutiny if they are found to be accurate. Serious allegations should be investigated rather than accepted or dismissed without evidence. Equally, if such claims are found to be misleading or taken out of context, that too should be established through proper verification rather than speculation.


For many people, this pattern feels familiar. Similar activist networks have been visible during the Shaheen Bagh protests, the farm law agitation, and demonstrations linked to JNU. Whether one describes them as seasoned activists, organised advocacy groups, or "andolanjeevis", the perception is that the same organisational machinery often appears across multiple movements, irrespective of the original issue. That perception, whether accurate or not, has become part of the wider public debate surrounding many large-scale demonstrations in recent years.


Ultimately, the real concerns of NEET aspirants deserve focused attention. Improving the integrity of examinations, ensuring transparency, and building trust in the admissions process should remain the priority. If a protest intended to highlight those issues gradually shifts towards broader political causes, it risks diluting the very objective it set out to achieve. The effectiveness of any movement often depends on maintaining clarity of purpose. It also depends on ensuring that its original stakeholders remain at the centre of the conversation.


The question, therefore, is not whether people have the right to protest—they absolutely do. The real question is whether the movement continues to represent the interests of students or whether those interests have become secondary to a larger political narrative.


(The writer is an IT professional based in Thane. Views personal.)

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