Jaitley: Cash situation normal again

Empty ATMs however rebut finance minister’s claim of swift recovery

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday said normalcy has been restored within few weeks of the unprecedented decision to recall 86 per cent of the currency in circulation and there is no shortage of notes in the market.

Currency note printing presses of Reserve Bank of India as well as Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL) have worked without a break to remonetise by issuing new bank notes, he said.

He said the easiest task was to pass comments and make snide remarks. “But, the toughest work is to implement it. This is perhaps the biggest demonetisation drive in the world that was aimed at striking at the very root of corruption, black money and counterfeit currency,” he said.

Quick recovery

Stating that people often commented that it may take up to one year or at least seven months to restore normalcy, he said the task has been achieved within a few weeks. “Normalcy has been restored within a few weeks and there is no shortage (of bank notes) in market for even a day,” he said.

The government had, on November 8 announced demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes valued at Rs15.45 trillion (Dh84.89 billion) or about 86 per cent of the currency in circulation. It has replaced them with new currency notes of INR 500 and 2,000 denominations.

Despite the claim many ATMs here were found gasping for cash yesterday.

As IANS went around the ATMs in the national capital, it found that the situation had only marginally improved from what it was during the peak of the turmoil that followed the demonetisation and that most of the cash machines still were bone dry.