Gaurav Gogoi disputes reports on Congress MPs backing UPI charges
Congress UPI charge
There has been some political controversy over the new charges for UPI services.
Congress denied any claims that their MPs support MDR.
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi has denied any such report.
He cited the recent August meeting of the Finance Committee.
Gogoi denied that there was any discussion of any UPI charge plan.
He added that no current charges were under discussion.
Some of the controversial points include the charges and transaction limit.
Also mentioned are exemptions and transaction categories.
There were five Congress MPs present at the August 12 meeting.
These were Gaurav Gogoi and P. Chidambaram.
Manish Tewari, Kishori Lal and K. Gopinath were other MPs.
The chairman of the committee was BJP MP Bhartruhari Mahtab.
Published accounts of the meeting denied any Congress dissent.
Gogoi clarified that this does not imply their approval of the existing charges.
The government has come up with a new UPI MDR policy.
The policy covers transactions for specific merchants for amounts greater than ₹2,000.
The MDR charged will be 0.4 percent on such transactions.
This charge will be applicable only within the merchant payment ecosystem.
UPI person-to-person transactions continue to be free of charge.
UPI merchant transactions for ₹2,000 or less continue to be free of charge.
According to the government, around 96 percent of P2M transactions will remain untouched.
For ₹75,000 and above transactions, the MDR ceiling is set at ₹300.
The policy is expected to go live from October 15.
The Ministry of Finance has dismissed allegations of foreign intervention.
This issue has led to political debate on UPI charges.
