Seeking to bring schools in line with India’s expanding digital economy, the Union Education Ministry has urged states and national school boards to adopt digital payment systems such as UPI for fee collection. The move, the ministry said, would improve transparency, reduce administrative hassles, and enhance convenience for parents.
In what officials described as a first-of-its-kind step, the Department of School Education and Literacy has written to all states and Union Territories, encouraging them to modernise their financial processes through the adoption of digital payment methods — including the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), mobile wallets and net banking.
The ministry said the initiative was aimed at reducing dependence on cash transactions in schools. “This would also enable all stakeholders to become more financially literate, thereby opening up a larger world of digital transactions,” the statement noted.
Autonomous institutions under the ministry such as the NCERT, CBSE, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) have been asked to explore mechanisms that facilitate the collection of admission and examination fees through secure, transparent digital channels.
Officials pointed out that a growing number of schools across India have already begun experimenting with online fee payment systems through third-party portals and mobile applications. However, a standardised, government-backed framework using UPI — the most widely adopted digital payment system in India, would help streamline processes, ensuring accountability and ease for both parents and administrators.
The shift towards digital payments, the ministry added, is consistent with the government’s broader push under the Digital India initiative, which seeks to modernise governance and reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies through technology-based interventions.
India has witnessed an unprecedented surge in digital transactions over the past few years, with UPI becoming the backbone of small-value and retail payments. According to Reserve Bank of India data, UPI clocked more than 12 billion transactions in a single month earlier this year, reflecting deep penetration across both urban and rural areas.
Educationists have long argued that digitising financial processes in schools can help curb leakages, maintain better audit trails and make fee management more efficient. In several states, parents continue to make cash payments at school counters, leading to issues of mismanagement and lack of real-time recordkeeping.
By promoting UPI, the ministry hopes to address these longstanding gaps while building digital confidence among stakeholders in the education ecosystem.
“The department’s recommendation marks an important step in aligning school-level administration with the government’s vision of a transparent and technology-driven public service structure,” an official said.
Follow us
