The final word

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s Annual Report, released on Wednesday, provides, in some sense, the final word on the government’s demonetisation exercise, which began on November 8, 2016. Multiple reasons were given for the decision to withdraw 86 per cent of India’s currency stock overnight — including the destruction of stocks of black money hoarded in cash, the possibility of windfall gains, the digitalisation of India’s payments architecture, and the moving of savings to financial assets. The RBI now says that 99.3 per cent of demonetised currency notes were exchanged at banks in the months following the announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The RBI is to be complimented for being extra careful in its release of the final