oppn parties UPI: Changing How Payments Will Be Made

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  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
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  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
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  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
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  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
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  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
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UPI: Changing How Payments Will Be Made

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2016-04-20 18:09:57

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
India is taking bold steps towards being a cashless society. A major step was taken last week when the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) was started. UPI is an initiative of National Payments Corporation of India, backed by the RBI and a consortium of several frontline commercial banks. It is designed to make payments through digital means easier by using both Aadhar and non-Aadhar based authentication. It has the potential of harnessing the power of the mobile phone to empower millions of Indians.

The idea is simple. Once you download the UPI plugin to your existing bank app (provided your banker is enrolled for UPI, which sooner or later it will be otherwise it will risk being left stranded on the emerging and cutting-edge payments highway) or upgrade to the UPI enabled app and fill in necessary details, a virtual identity will be created for you. After that, you will be able to directly transfer money from your mobile to the account of someone similarly enabled without even knowing their bank account number or IFS code. You will just need to know their virtual identity. The payment limit has been set at Rs 1 lakh per transaction for UPI.

UPI is an advanced version of Immediate Payments Service (IMPS) that required you to log in to the bank website and know the account number and IFS code of the recipient. UPI takes it a step further by creating virtual identities for users and eliminating codes. It does so in a more secured environment, doing away with cards and passwords and making your mobile the centre of authentication. Just remembering a four digit pin will suffice at both ends of the transaction. This will also do away with the need to keep idle (and not earning any interest) cash in digital wallets for making online payments. Although it might take a year for the service to stabilize but once it does, it will make life a lot easy.

The service has the potential of empowering millions by doing away with the need of intermediaries as the identity of the recipient will be authenticated instantly. It will also save millions of man-hours that Indians usually waste standing in queues to make payment of utility bills. Of course there will be a small charge for the service but it will be more than offset by the convenience and ease that it offers. It will change the way the common man pays and receives money.