RBI governor Urjit Patel to appear before parliament panel on Jan 18

Patel is also expected to brief the parliament's Public Accounts Committee in the first week of Jan

Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel will now appear before the parliamentary standing committee on finance on January 18, 2017 to brief the parliamentarians on the impact of demonetisation.

Before that, officials of the finance ministry and the income tax department will brief the panel on January 11 to explain the roadmap that the government has prepared to increase the percentage of cashless transactions from mere 3% at present to 90% desired by the centre.

Sources said standing committee chairman Veerappa Moily wanted to hear from the government on how it plans to achieve the difficult target.

RBI governor Urjit Patel was supposed to appear before the panel on Thursday but could not attend the meeting due to some other preoccupations.

Before briefing the parliamentary standing committee on finance, Patel is expected to brief the Public Accounts Committee of the parliament in the first week of January.

Both the key panels are headed by Congress lawmakers. While Lok Sabha member Moily heads the standing committee, his colleague KV Thomas heads the PAC.

Thomas said the PAC wanted to assess the impact of demonetisation and was keen to find out how the government had benefitted from the drive announced by PM Modi on November 8.

On Thursday, four experts including ICRIER chief Rajeev Kumar and former chief statistician Pronab Sen briefed the lawmakers on the pros and cons of demonetisation which has snowballed into a big political issue between the treasury and the opposition benches.

While the government has justified demonetisation saying it will boost cashless transactions and reduce black money, the opposition believes note ban has been thrust upon people.

Sources said the parliament members who attended the meeting wanted to know from the experts if black money has been eliminated from the system. Their opinion, said the sources, was divided.

Former PM Manmohan Singh, who had criticised demonetisation in a speech in the Rajya Sabha during the recently concluded winter session, also attended the standing committee meeting. Congress leader Digvijaya Singh was also present.

However, SP member Naresh Aggarwal skipped the meeting as the briefing of the RBI governor had been postponed, said the sources.