Articles by Geetisha Dasgupta

Geetisha Dasgupta is a researcher, independent consultant, and organiser on issues of labour, migration, gender, and technology. She particularly looks at labour force participation by women and gender and sexual minorities in non-standard forms of employment [NSFEs] in India, particularly in the gig mode. She works closely with a number of labour representative organisations in the NSFEs.

Making women vendors financially secure: UPI transactions helpful, but not a magic tool

by and November 13, 2024

Mita (name changed) is here, there and everywhere, managing her shop alone in Salt Lake,  Kolkata as she juggles her spatula, pots, pans, paper plates, teacups, and  dish soap. In the midst of this apparent chaos, she does some deft mental arithmetic to calculate dues, and tells her customers, “The QR code is displayed there.” Mita is one among the wide cross section of the Indian population who have adopted United Payments Interface (UPI)—a real-time, cash-less and secure payment system. The National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) introduced UPI in 2016 to facilitate inter-bank transactions for peer-to-peer, or individual-to-merchant transactions.…

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