Not true. I live in India and have traveled to smaller villages in the south and some in the north. People have started to avoid cash altogether because of few reasons. They do have UPI they just don’t like it cause they like cash. There is never any issue with UPI, it’s just an excuse.

Cash creates a problem of giving change that end up dissatisfying the customer or the customer just leaves. Only after UPI people understood this so now they want you to buy it as payments are not a hassle. Rickshaws in cities have lost interest in random hires. I have waited 45 minutes for rickshaws. Everyone is on Uber or Ola cause they will show up and say cancel the request and give me little less money instead. Pretty common. So they don’t have the option to say no to UPI. They try to give you reasons why it’s not working but they just want cash for obvious reasons.

UPI also allows people to have multiple accounts in family to accept payments. This way they can avoid any tax payments as small amounts in small villages are not scrutinised by the income tax department.

UPI has created more and easier transactions. Small village or big town, I’ve never seen a shop without a QR code in the last year or so.