Note ban report misses deadline

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday lambasted the NDA government, alleging that it had taken decisions like demonetisation and digitalisation without much thought and described them as coercive steps.

Dr Singh is learnt to have made these observations during the meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance, which on Tuesday failed to adopt and finalise its report on note ban owing to lack of any credible information provided by RBI on the quantum of black money recovered by the government till December 30, 2016 after the demonetisation.

The Parliamentary panel which is headed by Congress MP M Veerappa Moily, held its last meeting on Tuesday as its tenure is ending on August 31, and it had planned to finalise and submit its report on demonetisation to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan before its term expired.

As the panel will be reconstituted on September 1 for another year. Sources said the new panel may take a fresh look at the demonetisation and wait for some credible data on recovered black money, before finalising its report.

The possibilities of the panel getting a new chairperson also seem quite strong, as the sources said, Mr Moily has not been found to be too effective as head of a significant panel.

The general impression among members was that as chairperson, he could have been more assertive and exerted pressure on finance ministry and RBI to provide it with credible figures on amount of black money recovered by it post demonetisation.