Defence Minister Rajnath Singh cited digital payments among the government's economic achievements at a New Delhi media event on July 4, 2026. He said April had recorded 22.35 billion UPI transactions worth about Rs 29 lakh crore. The example sits within his broader political argument that India had moved from shortages towards greater self-reliance.
Contemporaneous PTI reporting provides a check on the transaction count. In a May 5 report, the agency attributed the 22.35 billion figure to the Department of Financial Services and compared it with 17.89 billion in April 2025. That is approximately 25% annual growth, matching the department's stated rate.
The same report recorded March 2026 volume at 22.64 billion, higher than April's total. Taken alone, the month-to-month comparison appears to show a slowdown. But March contains 31 days and April 30, so monthly volume and the average pace of use answer different questions.
ETBFSI's statistical table, credited to NPCI, gives the more precise totals: 22,346.80 million transactions in April and 22,641.11 million in March. Dividing each by its number of days produces about 744.9 million transactions a day in April and 730.4 million in March. On that calculation, daily activity rose about 2% even as the monthly total fell.
The table also places April's transaction value at Rs 29,02,988.05 crore, or roughly Rs 29.03 lakh crore. That supports the rounded value Singh used. Dividing value by volume yields approximately Rs 1,299 per transaction; this is a calculated average across transactions, not a measure of the typical person's spending.
The distinction sharpens the payments example in the minister's speech. Annual volume captures expansion relative to the same month a year earlier, while a daily average removes the immediate effect of unequal month lengths. Both comparisons can be true at once: a lower monthly total than March and a busier average day in April.
