India, April 24 -- With the government recently approving Rs.1,500 crore to incentivise low-value UPI payments, and a series of outages briefly disrupting the system, India's digital payments infrastructure is once again in the spotlight. These developments underscore how integral UPI has become to everyday transactions - and how much the system is relied upon to function smoothly, at scale.

The rapid rise of digital payments often reinforces the belief that India is steadily moving toward a cashless future. But the picture on the ground is more layered. While digital transactions have surged in recent years, this growth has not come at the expense of cash. Currency in circulation has more than doubled from Rs.13.35 lakh crore in March 2...