Industry honchos give thumbs up to demonetisation ahead of its first anniversary

While the first quarter of demonetisation created initial disruption in the Indian economy, industry as well as consumers eventually witnessed the positive impact of demonetisation within the first year of its implementation.

Some industry experts now claim that, this indeed, was a master stroke for the industry. According to them, though the growth slowed down for a quarter but eventually it proved be a boon to the economy.

Sharing the success story of demonetisation for the commercial real estate industry, Puneet Chandra- Founder and CEO, Skootr said, "Demonetisation and efforts from the government to restrict black money and its digital policy has boosted the confidence of legitimate businesses. Economic stability and a consistent political environment are directly proportional to business sentiments in the country. I feel this has turned a lot of businesses internationally very positive about India; as a result, we see a lot of traction in the commercial real estate industry. With the perception of existing government growing better in the eyes of the world, commercial real estate is going to be on its high during the next 3 to 4 years. We estimate a total requirement of 4 million desks in 3 years considering only the co-working space industry which is a subset of commercial real estate industry."

"Initially, primary and secondary players in the value chain of resale market in housing realty faced a huge business crunch; but commercial real estate benefitted from it. Given that cash components do not play a huge role in commercial real estate transactions, a bulk of the leasing is done through white money by registered companies. Hence, demonetisation did not have any slowdown impact on the commercial real estate segment. Adding to this, due to the liquid cash crunch, a lot of start-ups and even MNCs in India started opting for co-working and managed office working space so that they could protect themselves from the capital lock-ins which used to be very hefty", Mr. Chandra further added.

Sumit Peer, Founder and CEO, Aurelius Corporate Solutions said, "Demonetisation was a move which hardly any other leader in the world could dare to take, it reinvented the formula of political will and determination of an honest politician. This not only helped clean black money but also helped restore the image of Indians and Indian politics which had taken a serious beating in the past. A parallel thriving black money economy is halted and has helped check the price rise and inflation, making life and resources available to common man at a sustainable and affordable price. Our business has improved a lot as training opportunity on ERP customization and automation of home grown CRM solutions came in. We have seen a good demand on programs like SAP- GST from all segments for the market."

Rshmi Khetrapal, Founder Count Magic said demonetisation has controlled the parallel economy by curbing the flow of black money in the Indian economy. Appreciating the government's decision on curbing the illegal money, Ms. Khetrapal said, "Post analysing the state of Indian Economy, demonetisation was the need of the hour. I personally feel that demonetisation was one of the major reforms that any government could have undertaken. It has been instrumental in injecting cash back in the banking system. It helped in creating a transparency in the economy, helping the government expand tax base and revenues. Numbers of taxpayers have considerably increased and a large number of shell companies have been identified. This has helped our business grow at a much faster pace in the last one year. India was largely a cash driven economy but post this reform, majority of the population has now opted for digital mode of transactions.