While I agree with many of your points, in this context, UPI is just a money transfer platform. It’s not currency or a currency equivalent of any sort.
There is a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) in a pilot phase in India since last year.
There is a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) in a pilot phase in India since last year.
I personally think a centrally owned service like the IPS is very useful. I just think we would be better off having a permissionless and decentralized alternative that has wide enough adoption to make useful and hard to prohibit, to both provide competition to the centrally controlled network, and to act as a failsafe in case that network is mismanaged and run in an abusive fashion, e.g. locking out those who refused to get a COVID vaccine.