Govt, Oppn spar in both Houses

NEW DELHI: Opposition in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday sought to know why the Reserve Bank of India has not yet provided the number of demonetised 500 and 1000 rupee notes returned in the banking system, even after nine months of the note ban decision.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Anand Sharma (Cong) said “even a child is delivered in nine months” but the country doesn’t know how many of the old and junked currency notes were returned.

The government had on November 8 last year withdrawn the legal tender status of 500 and 1000 rupee notes to flush out black money and counterfeit currency.

“We are talking of going to moon and mars and digital India, but you can’t count money,” Sharma said, seeking to know the number of old currency notes returned to the banking system.

As other opposition parties supported his call, Sharma said, “I am not going to count (the currencies) for RBI.”

The old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes are being recon- ciled and processed by the RBI for verifying numerical accuracy and authenticity and the progress is being closely monitored, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday.

After the shock note ban decision, the government gave different time schemes to various categories of people to deposit the junked currency in bank accounts or exchange them for new notes. The last deadline expired on June 30.

RBI has refused to give the number saying the “figures would need to be reconciled with the physical cash balances to eliminate accounting errors/possible double counts etc”.

Opposition parties also demanded publication of the names of top 100 loan defaulters and sought to know under whose protection they were “thriving”.

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