DNA TV Show: What caused the recent UPI outage in India?

On March 6, the UPI service was down for about 3 hours. On April 2, there was a problem in UPI payment for a few hours. On April 12 too, UPI services were down for 3-4 hours. The UPI payment system in India is run by the National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI), which works in collaboration with RBI and banks. NPCI says that due to technical problems, UPI service was repeatedly affected. Experts say that due to the sudden increase in UPI payment, such a problem can happen, and this is not the last time. Such a problem can be seen in future also. Right now, the number of people using UPI payments in the country is more than 35 crore. There are more than 34 crore UPI QR codes across the country.

Around 661 banks in the country are connected with UPI transactions. Every day, 60 crore UPI transactions take place in the country, i.e. 2.5 crore transactions take place every hour, and 4.16 lakh transactions take place every minute. In March this year, a total of Rs 1830 crore UPI transactions took place, through which transactions worth Rs 24.77 lakh crore took place. This is the highest monthly UPI transaction to date.

Today, you should also know the record of UPI transactions being made through the digital revolution in the country. In March 2020, transactions worth Rs 2.6 lakh crore were done through UPI, which has increased to Rs 24.77 lakh crore in March 2025. There has been a jump of 1100 per cent in just five years. Similarly, in March 2020, there were Rs 148 crore UPI transactions in terms of numbers, which has increased to Rs 1830 crore in March 2025.

That is, this jump is also of 1136 per cent. From eating Panipuri to 5-star hotels, from buying vegetables to shopping in expensive malls, UPI is being used everywhere today. Nowadays, people have got used to not keeping cash or keeping very little cash. That is why thousands of people had to face a lot of problems this Saturday. We did a reality check of how much cash people keep in their pockets today. India's UPI system is being used in more than 10 countries, including Bhutan, Sri Lanka, France, Singapore, and the UAE. Sometimes, such problems arise due to technical problems or the process of upgrading the system.

READ | DNA TV Show: What caused the recent UPI outage in India?