New Delhi, Sep 16 (PTI) The Congress on Wednesday accused the government of giving into a US demand to get rid of zero MDR and charge for UPI, and took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has “redefined NOTA — Narendra’s Ongoing Trump Appeasement”.
The opposition party demanded that this “anti-national” decision should be immediately withdrawn, and UPI should be kept free of charge as before.
The Congress asked why the burden was being increased on people already struggling with inflation and why American companies’ coffers were being filled by cutting into the public’s pockets.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh also asked whether the government move on Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) was done to enable US card companies to compete with UPI.
He said that tomorrow, the US House of Representatives votes on a Bill that introduces 100% tariffs on India.
The US Senate has already approved this draconian law, he pointed out.
The Trump regime has also been cracking down on Indian immigrants and making tougher laws against them, Ramesh said on X.
H-1B visa costs have been increased and such holders could soon be deported immediately when out of a job, he said, adding such holders are mostly IT professionals.
“Here, the Modi government has given into a US demand to get rid of zero MDR and charge for UPI. The U.S. Trade Representative earlier this year criticized UPI for being free and having driven out Visa and Mastercard,” Ramesh said.
“Why 0.4% MDR? Is it because debit card MDR is also 0.4%? Is this being done to enable US card companies to compete with UPI?” he said.
Is this going to make UPI “sustainable” as the government claims, the Congress leader asked.
Noting that the estimated cost of running the entire UPI ecosystem is around Rs 20,000 crore annually, Ramesh said this is less than 10% of what the RBI has been transferring to the Union government in the past few years so as to show healthy public finances for the Modi government.
“The PM has redefined NOTA – Narendra’s Ongoing Trump Appeasement,” Ramesh said.
In another post, Ramesh also termed the MDR move as “2017 GST Redux”.
Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said huge volumes of transactions happen through UPI, and PM Modi has once again decided to take money from people’s pockets.
“Commercial UPI payments above Rs. 2,000 will now attract a 0.4% fee. A Rs. 5,000 payment will incur Rs. 20 and a Rs. 10,000 payment will incur Rs. 40. This burden will fall on students, youth, labourers, and the poor and middle class. At a time of high prices and inflation, instead of giving relief, the Modi government is increasing UPI costs,” Shrinate said.
She alleged that this was being done at the US’ behest with American companies, including Mastercard and Visa, having long lobbied for higher MDR citing their losses.
“Mr. Modi is now complying with their demand at the cost of ordinary Indians,” she alleged.
She claimed that the “biggest beneficiaries” of the move would be PhonePe, with 72% stake owned by America’s Walmart, and Google Pay, 100% owned by America’s Google LLC.
In August, the Modi government introduced the Taxation and Other Laws Amendment Bill to enable MDR on UPI and on August 6, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Parliament that no decision on MDR had been taken, Shrinate said.
Noting that on September 14 a notification was issued late at night imposing MDR on commercial UPI transactions above Rs. 2,000, she alleged that this is an attempt to weaken UPI and give American companies a larger share of its earnings.
“It has been done at America’s behest, with a compromised prime minister bending to Trump’s pressure,” Shrinate alleged.
Posing questions on behalf of the Congress, Shrinate asked why the burden was being increased on people already struggling with inflation and why American companies’ coffers were being filled by cutting into the public’s pockets.
“Under what pressure is the decision being made in favour of American companies” Why can’t the government and RBI bear the cost of running UPI? What guarantee is there that charges won’t be imposed on other payments in the future?” she said.
The Congress demands that this “anti-national” decision should be immediately withdrawn, and UPI should be kept free as before, Shrinate said.
The remarks come a day after the government introduced a 0.4 per cent fee on transfers worth more than Rs 2,000 made to merchants through the platform from October 15 while explicitly ring-fencing everyday person-to-person transactions as well as small payments from any charge.
“Customers will not be required to pay any charge when making such payments through UPI,” the finance ministry said in a statement, adding, “MDR is a charge within the merchant payment ecosystem. It is not a charge on customers making UPI payments.” Also, individuals will continue to have “unlimited free usage, with no monthly quotas, volume restrictions or tiered caps on free UPI transactions”, it said.
The carefully calibrated move signalled the end of an era for the world’s largest real-time payments system even as the government tried to avoid alarming the hundreds of millions of daily users.
The move has invited sharp criticism from the opposition parties.
The BJP has hit back, accusing the Congress of spreading “fake news”, saying the government had made it absolutely clear that MDR charges would not be levied on consumers. PTI ASK ASK DV DV
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.