PM Modi should apologise for demonetisation: Odisha Cong

The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should apologise to people as the demonetisation move, undertaken "hurriedly and arbitrarily", failed to eliminate black money.

OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik said the announcement to ban high-value currency notes was followed by prolonged cash shortage for weeks, which created significant disruption throughout the economy.

"Demonetisation is one of the arbitrary decisions taken by the prime minister. This was aimed to curtail shadow economy .. illegal activity and terrorism. But where is that black money?" he said in a statement issued on the second anniversary of demonetisation.

People seeking to change the old currency notes had to stand in long queues and several deaths occurred in different places due to the heavy rush, Patnaik said.

"The prime minister must tender an apology to the people for this wrong decision," the OPCC chief said.

According to a recent RBI report, nearly 99.3 per cent of the demonetised currency notes came back to the banking system, he said.

"This shows that the effort of demonetisation was taken in a hurry and it failed to remove black money from the economy. This move has reduced country's industrial production and GDP growth rate," Patnaik said.

Meanwhile, the Assam unit of Congress protested in front of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) building in Guwahati "against the devastating effects of demonitisation in India's economy".

The demonstrators tried to break the barricade near the RBI building but were stopped by police. Following this, several state Congress leaders were arrested and later released.

Assam Congress Legislature Party leader Debabrata Saikia termed the second anniversary of the note ban as a "black day" in the country, and the move "adversely affected the common people, while strengthening the financial position of capitalists".