NEW DELHI: As Rahul Gandhi stepped up his criticism of the federal government over the MDR announcement and demanded its rollback, calling it a “UPI tax”, a Standing Committee on Finance report had earlier emphasised the necessity for a viable income mechanism to make sure the UPI ecosystem stays financially sustainable with out putting a perpetual burden on the federal government exchequer.The report was ready by a committee that included Congress leaders, together with former finance minister P Chidambaram.The Standing Committee on Finance, which incorporates Congress MPs reminiscent of P Chidambaram, Manish Tewari, Gaurav Gogoi, Kishori Lal and Okay Gopinath, in its report offered to Parliament on August 12 this 12 months, known as for a tiered MDR or income framework for UPI.The panel additionally stated the framework ought to be notified and operationalised immediately.In its report, the Committee famous the “huge Rs. 2000 crore budgetary allocation for 2026-27 designed to offset ecosystem prices brought on by the zero-MDR coverage on RuPay and low-value UPI transactions”.The Committee noticed that whereas UPI is projected to course of as much as 150 billion transactions a month and add 600 million new customers, the present authorities incentive covers solely 11% of the trade’s precise prices and 14% of potential MDR collections. It stated this creates a structural funding hole that might have an effect on long-term funding in infrastructure.“The Committee want to emphasize that establishing a viable income mechanism is essential to making sure the UPI ecosystem achieves monetary sustainability with out perpetually straining the Authorities exchequer,” the report stated, as cited by ANI.“Within the view of the Committee, whereas statutory enablement now exists to allow calibrated MDR on high-value transactions, any delay in notifying and operationalizing this framework leaves fee service suppliers closely depending on insufficient subsidies, thereby threatening essential investments in cybersecurity, fraud prevention, and community infrastructure,” it added.The report, headed by BJP MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, was adopted by the panel, and no dissent was recorded within the printed minutes, officers have been quoted as saying by information company ANI.The event comes as Chief of Opposition within the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Centre’s new Service provider Low cost Charge (MDR) framework for Unified Funds Interface (UPI) transactions, accusing the federal government of yielding to strain from the USA and urging Modi to “have a backbone”.In a video posted on X, Gandhi referred to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi whereas evaluating her stance with Modi’s strategy to the brand new UPI measures. “Indiraji was as soon as requested whether or not she leans left or proper, and her response was, ‘I do not lean left or proper. I stand straight’,” Gandhi stated.
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He then turned to the brand new UPI framework, alleging that PM Modi had adopted a special strategy.In the meantime, the Centre has dominated out any rollback of the proposed 0.4 per cent Service provider Low cost Charge (MDR) on Unified Funds Interface (UPI) transactions above Rs 2,000, saying the choice has already been taken and can come into impact from October 15.The federal government has clarified that the brand new UPI framework may have no impression on person-to-person transactions, which can proceed to stay fully free, no matter the quantity transferred.Funds to retailers of as much as Rs 2,000, together with transactions coated beneath the zero-MDR framework for small retailers, may even stay free.The federal government additionally clarified that MDR is neither a tax nor a cost collected by the federal government or NPCI. As a substitute, it’s distributed amongst fee ecosystem individuals, together with banks and fee utility suppliers, to help the operation and continued enlargement of the UPI ecosystem.