- Congress denies specific UPI MDR proposal discussed in panel.
- Gaurav Gogoi, Manish Tewari reject government's political claims.
- Panel noted funding gap for UPI, need for revenue model.
Congress on Thursday rejected the allegations of not dissenting on the UPI Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) push by the government during a parliamentary panel discussion in August. Congress MP and Deputy Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, said there was no specific proposal on the matter.
"The Department of Finance did not have any specific proposal on UPI tax when they met the members of the finance committee. Questions were raised on the need for MDR, but the representatives of the government did not have any specific or satisfactory answers at that point," he said in a post on X.
His party and Lok Sabha colleague Manish Tewari, who is also a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, slammed the government for using the privileged proceedings of the panel for political gains.
"It is unfortunate that proceedings of Parliamentary Standing Committees that are supposed to be privileged are now sought to be used by the government to score brownie points," Tewari said in a social media post.
"My colleague is correct; no specific proposal qua the recent Merchant Discount Rate - MDR to be levied on UPI transactions from October 15th, 2026, was ever brought before the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance - rate, quantum, amount of fee to be charged, ceiling and exemption slabs, etc.," he added.
"To claim that a particular measure was supported by ‘certain members’ of the committee is an inaccurate and fallacious characterisation of the confidential proceedings of a Parliamentary Committee," he added.
Earlier on Wednesday, a government functionary told news agency PTI that Congress members supported the government's decision during the panel proceedings.
"Why is Rahul Gandhi opposing something his own MPs, including former finance minister P Chidambaram and former minister in the UPA government Manish Tewari, supported within the parliamentary panel?" news agency PTI reported a functionary as saying.
What happened during the panel meet
During the August meeting, the BJP MP Bhartruhari Mahtab-led panel noted that the legislative-enabling provisions for a tiered MDR structure were brought forward due to a need for a viable revenue model to run the UPI.
The committee highlighted the gap between the industry's estimated operational cost of Rs 20,700 crore and the Rs 2,000 crore allocation.
"The Committee notes the massive Rs 2,000 crore budgetary allocation for 2026-27 designed to offset ecosystem costs caused by the zero-MDR policy on RuPay and low-value UPI transactions," the committee report stated.
"The Committee observes that while UPI is expected to process up to 150 billion transactions per month and add 600 million new users, the current government incentive covers merely 11% of the industry's actual costs and 14% of potential MDR collections, creating a structural funding gap impacting long-term infrastructural investment," the panel observed.
The committee report stated that while statutory enablement now exists to permit calibrated MDR on high-value transactions, any delay in notifying and operationalising the framework leaves payment service providers heavily dependent on inadequate subsidies.