📷 Image: Wikimedia Commons / Yann Forget
Business
Madhya Pradesh traders cover QR codes to protest new UPI fee
✍️ Telangana Today
🗓 24 Sep 2026, 05:47 PM
👁 13
Shopkeepers across Madhya Pradesh are masking QR codes on their counters to demonstrate against the recently announced UPI transaction fee.
Traders in several towns of Madhya Pradesh have begun covering the QR codes displayed at their shops, signalling their dissent against the Reserve Bank of India's decision to levy a fee on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions. The move follows the central bank's announcement that a nominal charge would be imposed on merchants for each UPI payment, a step that many small business owners fear could erode thin profit margins.
The protest, which has spread from Bhopal to Indore, Gwalior and smaller market hubs, involves placing stickers, cloth or paper over the QR symbols that customers normally scan to pay digitally. Shop owners say the fee, though small per transaction, could accumulate into a significant cost for daily cash‑less sales.
No official response from the RBI has been recorded yet, but the banking regulator has previously emphasized that the fee aims to offset infrastructure costs and curb misuse of the platform. Traders, however, argue that the policy undermines the push for a cash‑less economy and disproportionately impacts small retailers.
Local merchant associations are coordinating the protest, urging the government to reconsider the fee structure and to engage directly with the business community before implementing such measures.
The demonstration adds to a growing list of sector‑specific protests across India, where stakeholders are increasingly vocal about policy changes that affect their operations.
The protest, which has spread from Bhopal to Indore, Gwalior and smaller market hubs, involves placing stickers, cloth or paper over the QR symbols that customers normally scan to pay digitally. Shop owners say the fee, though small per transaction, could accumulate into a significant cost for daily cash‑less sales.
No official response from the RBI has been recorded yet, but the banking regulator has previously emphasized that the fee aims to offset infrastructure costs and curb misuse of the platform. Traders, however, argue that the policy undermines the push for a cash‑less economy and disproportionately impacts small retailers.
Local merchant associations are coordinating the protest, urging the government to reconsider the fee structure and to engage directly with the business community before implementing such measures.
The demonstration adds to a growing list of sector‑specific protests across India, where stakeholders are increasingly vocal about policy changes that affect their operations.