Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday pushed back against Congress leader Jairam Ramesh's charge that the government's new bill would end free UPI transactions for ordinary users. The finance minister responding to his post on X, insisted that any future merchant discount rate (MDR) would fall on businesses, not customers.
Sitharaman accused the opposition leader of "spreading a canard" and clarified that MDR "applies only on the merchants and not on the end users/customers," adding that the revenue would let banks and fintechs invest in infrastructure, innovation and security, benefits she said would eventually flow to all UPI users.
