Demonetisation a dud

Sushma Swaraj and her fellow party leaders are oblivious to the sufferings of the public

Demonetisation was and is not a solution to check the menace of black money. The hasty and unplanned decision to demonetise the high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, comprising 86 per cent of the total currency in circulation on November 8, 2016, by PM Narendra Modi was outrageous, and not courageous as claimed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in her address to the United Nations General Assembly. Probably, Swaraj and her fellow party leaders are oblivious to the sufferings of the public waiting for hours in queue for the exchange of notes including the untimely deaths of about a 100 people.

They also seem to be unconcerned with the facts and figures which are in public domain. Ninety-nine per cent of the scrapped notes have safely returned to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) vaults. The cost of printing new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 and the interest paid to banks by the RBI towards reverse repo have ultimately resulted in the central bank transferring Rs 30,659 crore to the government for the year ended June 30, 2017. This is less than half of the Rs 65,896 crore transferred for the year ended June 30, 2016. The GDP growth has also suffered by one to two percent during the last three quarters. Swaraj or Arun Jaitley's proud assertion that the demonetisation of notes was the right and bold step to unearth black money does not hold water. Everyone must gracefully accept the fact that the demonetisation of notes is not a solution to check corruption and black money.

Ramanath Nakhate   Mumbai

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