UPI glitch hits business, commoners

Ranchi: A temporary glitch in the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system on Friday disrupted digital transactions across Ranchi, causing widespread inconvenience. The outage, which lasted several hours in the afternoon, affected popular payment apps, including Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm, and BHIM.The sudden disruption left consumers helpless as they were unable to complete purchases through digital wallets, significantly impacting small businesses and vendors who rely heavily on UPI for daily transactions."More than half of my customers pay through UPI. When it stopped working, people either abandoned their purchases or promised to pay later, causing chaos and business losses," said Ramesh Sahu, a salesperson at Apna Mart in Chunna Bhatta.Customers faced similar challenges. Anjali Kumari, a college student, said: "I was at a pharmacy with no cash. My UPI kept loading and failing. It was really embarrassing and stressful."At Kutchehry Chowk, Rehan Khan from Apex Engineering encountered difficulties while attempting to pay GST. "The page kept loading multiple times, but eventually, the issue was resolved, and the payment went through successfully," he said.