Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday that the situation arising out of 8 November demonetisation announcement was “almost normal” now and the Reserve Bank was monitoring the supply on a daily basis,
“As far as remonetisation is concerned, the situation is almost normal and RBI is monitoring the currency supply position on daily basis,” he said.
The government had withdrawn legal tender character of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 2016 with an aim to check black money, counterfeit notes and terror financing. The government is now pushing and incentivising digital payments.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of ‘Momentum Jharkhand Global Investors’ Summit 2017 here, Jaitley said cash economy has many vices as it leads to crime and tax evasion.
Therefore there was need to change the way the trade and commerce is undertaken in the country, he added.
When asked about the amount of scrapped currency received by banks post demonetisation, the Finance Minister said RBI Governor Urjit Patel had recently informed that the central bank would disclose the figure only after the process of currency verification is complete.
“Whatever time is required, RBI will take that much time.
I would not like to say anything thing beyond that,” he added.
To a query on discrimination on royalty payment on minerals, Jaitley said it is done based on defined rule.
Jaitley’s claims aside, there have been innumerable complaints of unavailability of cash in ATMs even in the national capital and its adjoining cities of Noida and Gurgaon.
Twitter has been flooded with images of empty ATMs both in Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon. Even in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, unavailability of cash has become a big election issue with many expressing their anger against the Centre’s Narendra Modi government.
Modi, in his several public speeches, had promised Indians that normalcy will be restored within 50 days, but the his government has failed to fulfill that promise of the prime minister even four months after the announcement.
The RBI has continued to impose restrictions on weekly withdrawal while lifting the daily limit from ATMs, which remain without cash post note ban announcement.
(With PTI inputs)