Opposition to Call Black day Note bandi day 8 Nov

The Reserve Bank, which has so far shied away from disclosing the actual number of junked currency deposited after November 8 last year, said in its Annual Report for 2016-17 that Rs 15.28 lakh crore of the junked currency had come back into the banking system, leaving only Rs 16,050 crore out.

As on November 8, 2016 there were 1,716.5 crore pieces of Rs 500 and 685.8 crore pieces of Rs 1,000 in circulation, totalling Rs 15.44 lakh crore.

Post-demonetisation RBI spent Rs 7,965 crore in 2016-17 on printing new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 and other denomination notes, more than double the Rs 3,421 crore spent in the previous year.

The demonetisation was hailed as a step that would curb black money, corruption and check counterfeit currency but RBI said just 7.1 pieces of Rs 500 note per million in circulation and 19.1 pieces of Rs 1,000 notes per million in circulation were found to be fake in its sample survey.

Opposition was quick to seize on the data to attack the government with former finance minister P Chidambaram saying, “RBI ‘gained’ Rs 16000 crore, but ‘lost’ Rs 21000 crore in printing new notes! The economists deserve Nobel Prize.”

“Demonetisation is the biggest scam, as the government has helped the wrong people legitimise their illegitimate money through it and has betrayed the poor people of the country with false promises,”  Congress senior spokesperson Anand Sharma said.

He stressed it was the prime minister’s “direct responsibility as it was his personal decision”.

“The prime minister should take moral responsibility by accepting his mistake and apologise,” he told reporters here.

Sharma alleged demonetisation had led to a GDP loss of Rs 2.25 lakh crore.

The prime minister had committed a breach of trust with the people by making false claims on the issue, he added.

Sharma said Modi had promised to unearth black money and end corruption, terror funding and counterfeit currency.

None of the promises made by him while announcing the decision had come true, he said.

“Once the honour of the prime minister’s word is gone and the trust of the people destroyed, then where is his credibility and where does he stand,” he asked.

The Congress’s attack came after the Reserve Bank of India said in its annual report yesterday that banks had received Rs 15.28 lakh crore or 99 per cent of the invalidated currency.

The senior Congress leader wondered what the note ban decision had achieved as 99 per cent of the money had been returned, and accused the prime minister of “changing the narrative” on the issue repeatedly.

“The prime minister made a sensational announcement on November 8 that unleashed financial anarchy and economic chaos in the country. The Reserve Bank figures yesterday exposed the falsehood propagated by the government,” he said.

Sharma said dozens of people died and committed suicide.

“Who is responsible for it,” he asked.

The former Union minister also accused the government of being “insensitive” as the decision brought “misery to people who kept waiting in long queues to get their own money from the banks”.

Training his guns on Modi, Sharma said he kept “changing his narrative and kept pace with a species called the chameleon, which keeps changing its colours”.

He added that Modi’s ministers, too, had a “direct responsibility”.

Sharma accused Modi of defaming his own people before the world. Had this happened in any other country, the PM would not be in office, he added.

He asked the prime minister to explain his Independence Day speech where he mentioned that Rs 3 lakh crore of black money had been unearthed and challenged him to make public the list of companies and individuals whose undeclared money it was.