Punjab, Sept. 28 -- From 15 October, a merchant who takes a Rs 5,000 payment over UPI will pay Rs 20 for it. The Supreme Court has declined to stop that, and has asked the government to explain itself in writing. Both of those are the right outcome, and the explanation is going to be difficult.
The case for charging
It is stronger than the reaction suggests.
UPI has never been free. It has been free to the user, paid for by banks and payment providers out of their own margins, topped up by government incentive schemes that have been shrinking year on year. Someone has been carrying tens of billions of transactions a month, and it has not been the people making them.
An infrastructure that nobody is paid to maintain eventually stops bein...