Contrary to the central government’s expectations, Indians have deposited almost all the banned notes in Bank accounts post demonetisation.
A Bloomberg report claimed that Banks have received 14.97 trillion rupees as of December 30, the deadline for exchanging old notes. This constitutes 97 per cent of the total 15.4 trillion worth currency that was declared illegal. The government was expecting about 5 trillion rupees to remain undeclared so as to identify black money.
The report confirmed the data attributing to ‘people with knowledge of the matter’ who asked not to be identified citing rules for speaking with the media.
The report of a full validation of the bank notes has come as a setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government’s much hyped demonetisation move. When he announced the government’s decision to demonetise high denomination notes on November 8 last year, the PM had said that the intention behind the demonetisation was to curb black money. The government and the ruling BJP had time and again reiterated this point when the opposition parties raised the hardships caused by people due to the move pointing out long queues outside banks and ATMs.
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The report, quoting sources, also stated that Banks have disbursed about 8 trillion rupees in new currency bills. The figures of bank notes deposited are provisional and may change, the sources added.
Even though the government introduced certain measures, such as applying indelible ink mark on the customers’ fingers to prevent repeated conversions, there had been reports on various ways in which people attempted to convert black money into white post demonetisation.
Some reports even cited the emergence of new ‘lobbies’ who helped convert black money into white with a ‘commission’ ranging 20-30 per cent of the amount. Several bank officials were also caught in the process of money laundering. There were also reports of finding huge deposits in jandhan accounts and the accounts of certain political parties.
