‘IT IS PRETTY EVIDENT THAT MORE BLACK MONEY WAS CIRCULATING’

NIKHIL RAJAN, BRANCH MANAGER, SYNDICATE BANK

When talking about the success rate of demonetisation, it is really unfortunate to say that, to a large extent, the step had not served its purpose though it was one of the major steps our economy had seen in past few years in terms of bringing out black money. Almost 99 per cent of the `500, `1,000 currency notes that were in circulation have been deposited back with the banks and if the figures are to be believed then it can never be such that this drastic step was taken to bring back just `16,000 crore black money. It is pretty much evident that more black money was circulating in the economy but people were able to make it white despite demonetisation. The government should therefore with foremost priority check this and find out how much black money has been converted. The next thing is about digitisation. The ruling government had urged everyone to switch to digital banking and make the economy corruption free, but the government itself has not taken any strict steps to implement digitisation. Making every transaction cashless and slowly cutting down the cash mode payment method for various activities will eventually help to make banking activities digital. However, nothing of this sort has been done. In a way the government itself seems to be a bit confused as none of the things that the PM said during his speech while announcing demonetisation has come into effect.