No plans to scrap legislative council, says Fadnavis

After the row over Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Anil Gote’s statements in the legislative Assembly demanding the dissolution of the Maharashtra legislative council, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis made it clear that the government did not plan to scrap the council.

Distancing the government from Gote’s remarks, Fadnavis warned him against making such ‘irresponsible statements’ and said the government did not endorse his views. “The council has a glorious history. It has always directed the state. The government has tremendous respect for this House. I do not endorse Gote’s statements, either as a representative of the government, or in my personal capacity. I have spoken to Gote and asked him not to repeat his comments,” said the chief minister.

On Friday, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sunil Tatkare said the government did not want the Upper House to function smoothly, which accounted for Gote’s disrespect towards the council.

Close to 500 people, mostly non-resident Indians (NRI), stood in serpentine queues early on Friday to exchange their Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) headquarters in Fort.

Friday was the last day for NRIS to exchange their demonetised notes as they were not the country during and after Prime Minister Modi’s announcement scrapping the notes on November 8 last year.

According to the last notification issued by RBI, NRIS had to exchange their demonetised notes by March 31 and come through the ‘red channel’ at airports, where customs officials would identify the number of banned notes and issue a certificate to be given to the RBI. Only RBI offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Nagpur were exchanging banned notes.

An RBI senior official,who did not wish to be identified, spoke to HT and elaborated the problems that the bank faced, especially between Wednesday and Friday.

“Hundreds came from rural areas in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka as they had not submitted their demonetised notes during the time-frame provided by the government. This inconvenienced Indians who came from abroad,” said the official. “We put up circulars outside our office stating that defaulters would not be allowed and we extended working hours on Thursday and Friday to cater to the maximum possible people.”

On Friday, an NRI from Abu Dhabi said he was able to exchange his scrapped notes only on Friday. “I had close to Rs10,000 in Rs1,000 and Rs500 notes. Even after I reached Mumbai by 10am on Wednesday, RBI officials refused to accept the demonetised currency as I did not have the customs certificate,” said CG Kulkarni, 75.

He added that he got the docu ments on Thursday and submit ted the notes on Friday.

“If the cash is in India, how am I supposed to travel back and forth to the customs office? There was no need for such confusing guidelines,” he said, “On both days, I saw that the RBI did not have separate queues for senior citizens, NRIS, or for those who live in India but failed to exchange their notes before.”

On Wednesday, an NRI said that even though he had the req uisite documents, including a certificate from the customs department, he did not have his Aadhar card and alleged that RBI’S guidelines did not specify that he needed to carry one.“this is no way to function. Central banks abroad have a list of guide lines followed by bank officials and one or two officials assisting people in queues,” said Sunil Nair, a seafarer and UK resident