New Delhi, Sept. 17 -- The Union government has questioned the rationale behind Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's criticism of the decision to levy a fee on UPI payments to merchants above Rs.2,000, saying a parliamentary standing committee had backed such a move and Congress members of the panel had supported it.

A senior government functionary, as quoted by news agency PTI, said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance had pressed for a tiered Merchant Discount Rate (MDR)/ revenue framework for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and noted that it should be notified and operationalised without delay.

Five Congress MPs including P Chidambaram, Manish Tewari, Gaurav Gogoi, Kishori Lal and K Gopinath were present on August 12 when the r...