Shark Tank's Anupam Mittal reacts to UPI outage in now-deleted post

Shaadi.com founder and Shark Tank India judge Anupam Mittal, in a now-deleted tweet, raised concerns over the prolonged disruption in UPI services, urging the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to address the issue urgently. The outage, which began on March 26, 2025, affected major digital payment platforms, including Google Pay and Paytm, causing inconvenience to thousands of users across the country.

Mittal took to X (formerly Twitter) to highlight the ongoing issue, stating that digital transactions via UPI were still facing difficulties even 24 hours after the reported outage. In his now-deleted post, he wrote, “Digital payments via #UPI continue to struggle after 24 hrs while we have media reporting it was down only for an hour. Increasingly problem solving is become problem spinning @NPCI_NPCI solve karo pls. Desh ke GDP ka sawaal hai.”

Users React to UPI Disruptions

Mittal’s post quickly gained traction, with many users expressing frustration over the recurring issues with UPI transactions. One user commented, “UPI is the only innovation India is stretching across the globe. Desh ke Hit me NPCI sabke samay ka balidan maang raha hai, while increasing cash withdrawal fees from May 1, UPI nahi chala to cash lelo fees dekar.” Another user noted, “And this problem is happening very frequently these days,” while a third added, “It’s still unstable.”

NPCI's Response and Downdetector Reports

NPCI acknowledged the technical glitch, stating that it had faced intermittent issues that led to a partial decline in UPI transactions. In a post on X, NPCI wrote, “NPCI had faced intermittent technical issues owing to which UPI had partial decline. The same has been addressed now, and the system has stabilised. Regret the inconvenience.”

However, data from Downdetector, a platform that tracks outages, revealed that the number of problem reports peaked at 7:40 PM IST on March 26, with around 2,750 users experiencing issues. Of these, 83% reported transaction failures, 13% faced fund transfer issues, and 4% encountered app-related problems. The complaints started declining after 8:45 PM, but some users still reported issues even the next day.

UPI has become an integral part of India’s digital economy, facilitating billions of transactions each month. Any prolonged outage raises concerns over the reliability of the system, particularly for businesses and individuals who rely on seamless digital payments.