Mayawati calls UPI merchant fee 'capitalist profiteering', warns of burden on public

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has criticised the Union government's decision to levy a 0.4% fee on Unified Payments Interface transfers of more than ₹2,000 made to merchants, describing the move as an apparent "capitalist profiteering attitude" that extracts money from the public through multiple channels.

In a post on X in Hindi on Friday, she said the government had initially pushed UPI digital transactions vigorously, and its new arrangement to charge fees on them had naturally caused unease and outrage among people.

She argued that the public was unwilling to accept a system that places an additional financial burden on them in the form of a tax. Whatever name is given to the arrangement, which takes effect on October 15, it will ultimately hurt the pockets of common people and raise their expenses, she said.

Ms. Mayawati noted that a large majority of the country's population already struggles with extreme poverty and high inflation, while their children face illiteracy, unemployment and disorder. In such circumstances, she said, government policies and action plans should prioritise welfare over commercial profit-making, and asked who would attend to public hardship if the government did not.

The fee, announced on Tuesday, ends nearly six years of free UPI payments. The government has explicitly shielded everyday person-to-person transactions and small payments from any charge.

The finance ministry said customers will not have to pay anything for such payments through UPI, and that the merchant discount rate is a charge within the merchant payment ecosystem rather than a charge on customers. Individuals will continue to have unlimited free usage, with no monthly quotas, volume restrictions or tiered caps on free UPI transactions, it said.

The decision has drawn sharp criticism from opposition parties.