INDIAN ECON, POLITICS, SOCIETY + BTC PRICE

[eaLiTy]

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You are advocating for gov to keep funding UPI but at the same breath you are asking them to voluntary dent on their revenue source (Approx 25%-30% for states and centre respectively)? You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I have a curious query. Who funds the printing and distribution of currency? It is way bigger than the subsidy being provided for UPI. The RBI funds that, and if the government is proactively encouraging everyone to shift to digital transactions, they need to have a bigger stake in the game when it comes to footing the bill. 

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Meanwhile there has been increased probe on the Kolkata rape-murder case of August 2024, two MLA have been jailed, but I think its just eye wash, the CBI is not doing a proper investigation at all.

I think the investigation and the arrests are steps in the right direction, as the arrested MLA was involved in destroying the body before a second autopsy could happen. The main problem with the CBI investigation is that they did not get proper evidence from the start. I believe political involvement destroyed a lot of the evidence early on.

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That's quite a relief to be honest but I still think that the government might slowly bring it to the consumers as well.

If history teaches us one thing, it is that a temporary income tax with a statutory period of only five years to recover from war losses can easily become permanent. Once the promised five-year period ends, the government simply implements a law to make income tax permanent. I won't be surprised if consumers share the bill in the future when we reach a point of no return from paper currency.

[Cointikka]

And they again did it! Kerala has a new name now: Keralam. They passed the bill in the August 2026 parliamentary session. Why so much secrecy? I do not follow mainstream media, so I do not know whether it was announced to the public. Since 2014, after Modi came into power, this government has changed the names of states and districts.

[JSRAW]

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You are advocating for gov to keep funding UPI but at the same breath you are asking them to voluntary dent on their revenue source (Approx 25%-30% for states and centre respectively)? You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I have a curious query. Who funds the printing and distribution of currency? It is way bigger than the subsidy being provided for UPI. The RBI funds that, and if the government is proactively encouraging everyone to shift to digital transactions, they need to have a bigger stake in the game when it comes to footing the bill.  

Yes, RBI does that and RBI is owned and funded by gov, which comes under finance ministry.

Gov does take care of the funding and they should continue to do the same but this should go into innovation and strengthen the existing UPI model like security or somewhere else. For day to day operational cost it shouldn't be dependent on gov funding, which is the case atm.

Treat this as a strategic asset which is a market balancer and gives you a digital payment Sovereignty. Back it completely similar to BSNL and doing so try your best to make it self sufficient so that it can atleast pay it's day to day bill and in future possible some self funded projects too.

[Cointikka]

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While you guys keep debating whether UPI charges are justified or not. Israel is going to roll out UPI very soon, as per this news article. This announcement, on which this article was based, was made by Israel's ambassador to India on X. A moment of pride for every Indian who has been using this fintech and for the country.

[JSRAW]

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While you guys keep debating whether UPI charges are justified or not. Israel is going to roll out UPI very soon, as per this news article. This announcement, on which this article was based, was made by Israel's ambassador to India on X. A moment of pride for every Indian who has been using this fintech and for the country.

Israel isn't first and won't be a last. 8-9 countries already integrated or in process on including UPI into their system and numbers will only go up.

Although, atm it's mostly used by Indian origin folks, travelers, expats and maybe some foreign traders as well.

[Bitcoin Smith]

That's quite a relief to be honest but I still think that the government might slowly bring it to the consumers as well.

However it does not seem from initial articles that any fees will be borne by the customers.

Even the fees are not directly paid by the consumers, the sellers will simply increase the price in accordance with the charges collected on the product and we are going to pay it ultimately. We still have the same issue with credit cards in our country, there are some individual big outlets deny credit card payments or they will ask us to pay 1.5 to 2% transaction fee that is not really our responsibility to pay but we have to pay or we can't use credit cards. I don't want the same kind of situation for UPI too in the future.

[pawanjain]

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That's quite a relief to be honest but I still think that the government might slowly bring it to the consumers as well.

If history teaches us one thing, it is that a temporary income tax with a statutory period of only five years to recover from war losses can easily become permanent. Once the promised five-year period ends, the government simply implements a law to make income tax permanent. I won't be surprised if consumers share the bill in the future when we reach a point of no return from paper currency.

Call it plastic currency because that's how its gonna be. India is planning to roll out plastic currency for 10 rs and 20 rs notes by mid of next year.
They are going to use polymer for these new notes which will replace existing paper currencies and are expected to have 2x - 4x times life span than paper currencies.
The initial trial will cover around 1 billion notes, well, that's a lot but considering the volume used on daily basis I guess it must be required.

[Cointikka]

Israel isn't first and won't be a last. 8-9 countries already integrated or in process on including UPI into their system and numbers will only go up.

Although, atm it's mostly used by Indian origin folks, travelers, expats and maybe some foreign traders as well.

I was only aware of Israel launching UPI, which meant a boost to India's fintech and another source of earnings for NPCI. I was not aware that 8-9 countries were in the process of integrating UPI. If that happens, then NPCI will not have a funding issue. They will make a lot of money by providing their services to these countries.

[eaLiTy]

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Gov does take care of the funding and they should continue to do the same but this should go into innovation and strengthen the existing UPI model like security or somewhere else. For day to day operational cost it shouldn't be dependent on gov funding, which is the case atm.

If you really want to make the payment network self-sufficient, you can either charge the merchant a transaction fee, sell user data to advertisers, or introduce premium features.

We started this discussion talking about charging merchants, but to completely cover the operational costs, you would need to sell the data—which I think is inappropriate. In my personal view, if the government is advertising a 'Digital India' and encouraging everyone to migrate, then digital payment sovereignty cannot be treated like a commercial business with a break-even timeline.

Treat this as a strategic asset which is a market balancer and gives you a digital payment Sovereignty. Back it completely similar to BSNL and doing so try your best to make it self sufficient so that it can atleast pay it's day to day bill and in future possible some self funded projects too.

I would say the BSNL model is not something I am proud of. The government just destroyed their business; they were not even allowed to migrate from 3G to 4G spectrum while private players took full advantage of the situation and the majority of users migrated to them. Just last year, BSNL finally migrated to 4G when every other network was already providing 5G spectrum.

If you think about that logic and its correlation to BSNL, there is no doubt that merchants will eventually return to physical currency. There is a fine line you can stretch these things to, even for a government, as it involves the livelihood of the majority of the common man. So, it will be interesting to see how things turn out in the future.

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India is planning to roll out plastic currency for 10 rs and 20 rs notes by mid of next year.
They are going to use polymer for these new notes which will replace existing paper currencies and are expected to have 2x - 4x times life span than paper currencies.
The initial trial will cover around 1 billion notes, well, that's a lot but considering the volume used on daily basis I guess it must be required.

I still remember the national mainstream media, like Zee News and Aaj Tak, talking about a Nano GPS chip in the new currency after demonetisation was announced.  So I will wait till it is actually implemented.

If they are introducing plastic currency or even cotton fiber paper, it is great. We should have shifted long ago.

[Cointikka]

I would say the BSNL model is not something I am proud of. The government just destroyed their business; they were not even allowed to migrate from 3G to 4G spectrum while private players took full advantage of the situation and the majority of users migrated to them. Just last year, BSNL finally migrated to 4G when every other network was already providing 5G spectrum.

This is the zone where no one is talking about. This government destroyed competition in the telecom sector. There are two major players now: Airtel and JIO; they both control more than 75% of the market. VI is providing a small amount of competition, but the way BSNL was stopped from growing is questionable. There was a time when BSNL was one of the biggest mobile service providers due to its penetration in rural areas. There were rumors at that time that it was done to promote Jio.

[pawanjain]

I still remember the national mainstream media, like Zee News and Aaj Tak, talking about a Nano GPS chip in the new currency after demonetisation was announced.  So I will wait till it is actually implemented.

If they are introducing plastic currency or even cotton fiber paper, it is great. We should have shifted long ago.

Lol, yeah even I remember reading that news back then and it was hilarious to be honest.
Some people were even investigating the notes to see where the chip is exactly located.
But yeah, the plastic currency notes is entirely true and is already in process and we might see it in supply next year.
They are doing this to reduce paper usage which is good and as you say, we should have shifted to it long time ago since other countries have it since decades ago.

[JSRAW]

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Gov does take care of the funding and they should continue to do the same but this should go into innovation and strengthen the existing UPI model like security or somewhere else. For day to day operational cost it shouldn't be dependent on gov funding, which is the case atm.

If you really want to make the payment network self-sufficient, you can either charge the merchant a transaction fee, sell user data to advertisers, or introduce premium features.

We started this discussion talking about charging merchants, but to completely cover the operational costs, you would need to sell the data—which I think is inappropriate. In my personal view, if the government is advertising a 'Digital India' and encouraging everyone to migrate, then digital payment sovereignty cannot be treated like a commercial business with a break-even timeline.

That's what they proposed charging some percentage ( 0.3-0.5) to merchants. With this proposal, Idea is to contribute atleast something even if it's not covering full operation cost. We'll see if it's feasible or not once this proposal comes into effect but you have to try from somewhere and it's a start.

Government is in business of buying data, not the other way around except Public record access ( census, economic activities etc) it doesn't come under this. Government will fall or face charges of treason if they found selling citizen's data. They'll use it for their benefit like elections etc but selling it, its big no go zone unless you really want your country to fail.

Treat this as a strategic asset which is a market balancer and gives you a digital payment Sovereignty. Back it completely similar to BSNL and doing so try your best to make it self sufficient so that it can atleast pay it's day to day bill and in future possible some self funded projects too.

I would say the BSNL model is not something I am proud of. The government just destroyed their business; they were not even allowed to migrate from 3G to 4G spectrum while private players took full advantage of the situation and the majority of users migrated to them. Just last year, BSNL finally migrated to 4G when every other network was already providing 5G spectrum.

If you think about that logic and its correlation to BSNL, there is no doubt that merchants will eventually return to physical currency. There is a fine line you can stretch these things to, even for a government, as it involves the livelihood of the majority of the common man. So, it will be interesting to see how things turn out in the future.

Sure nothing much to proud the way BSNL was handle but that's how capitalism works. Gov won't allocated all their budget into some business just to compete with pvt players. I mean we can't possibly think that gov should outspend pvt players, right?

Also, their main job is governance and not running multi billion venture but they must have backup. It's still lose revenue in 100s of millions but earlier it used to be in billion. Hope, we won't see those days but imagine private players going rouge or west cut us out from system. Then these same asset will save our ass and keep country running.

People will always find the loopholes and proposal covers only big merchants, who are earning in 10s of lakhs and crores so don't think it involves livelihood of common man.

[Bitcoin Smith]

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Sure nothing much to proud the way BSNL was handle but that's how capitalism works. Gov won't allocated all their budget into some business just to compete with pvt players. I mean we can't possibly think that gov should outspend pvt players, right?

Also, their main job is governance and not running multi billion venture but they must have backup. It's still lose revenue in 100s of millions but earlier it used to be in billion. Hope, we won't see those days but imagine private players going rouge or west cut us out from system. Then these same asset will save our ass and keep country running.

I doubted they needed much, they needed the approval for the 4G but it was deliberately delayed for the growth of Jio, even if we can't prove it still a fact and anyone knows it. The ironic thing is most of the private players used the BSNL infrastructure to reach the rural India yet the one who is in charge can't do that because the government didn't think how much the revenue of the BSNL will be if they havd their fair share in this 5G market share.