FOR INTERVIEWS--DEMONETISATION ---The initiative, as per the parliamentary panel report, is a blunder, writes MY Siddiqui Tehelka W

source:

http://www.tehelka.com/2017/08/demonetisation-cat-is-out-of-the-bag/

A Parliamentary Committee on Demonetisation has submitted its report, which will be tabled during the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

Accordingly, the report calls demonetisation a blunder. Not a single objective has been met, it reportedly says.

Findings of the Committee reveal no major black money was found. It says Finance Ministry accepts that only details of 4,172 crores of suspicious money which could be black. (Prime Minister Modi had predicted 5-7 lakh crores would have been black).

According to the Committee’s findings, demonetisation had no effect on terror funding. Neither cashless nor was less cash society formed as Finance Ministry was projecting. People have shifted back to pre-November 8, 2016, level cash transactions.

In a further revelation, the report says demonetisation killed small scale industries and major unorganised sector. Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh, a trade union affiliate of BJP, has reported a loss of four crore jobs and shut down of over three lakh industrial units. Report has questioned decision making authority and termed all decisions were taken without planning, like size of currencies not planned according to ATMs, 2000 rupees note was brought in without any smaller denomination note to exchange, no considerable amount of currency printed for supply which led to huge rush to banks and ATMs, rules changed on daily basis proved flawed planning. Till date, ATMs remained dry in rural areas.

In a startling revelation, the report says failed demonetisation planning has led to now cut in expenditures of Government on health, education and other vital sectors. Education sector remains most affected as funds have been stopped, fees hiked, and seats decreased for research. Taxes have been increased, interest rates on PPF and other savings scheme reduced.

In view of the foregoing, who will be held responsible for all this Organised Blunder? Who will account for 30,000 plus crores incurred on distribution and all other expenses like advertisements, transportation, extra pay to manpower etc? The question arises who will be held responsible for 180 plus deaths during the whole process?
Will PM Modi account himself before the bar of the people or will Indian democracy continue to be throttled with arbitrary exercise of power by one man government, shorn of collective responsibility? Will Modi go down in the history of India as the first disrupter of its economy by getting away with the aggressive hyper nationalism and any one questioning him as anti-national?

Media euphemistically called “presstitutes” by one of the NDA Government’s Minister, have been warned not to bring the report to light.

Rightly, the former PM Dr Manmohan Singh termed it as “Organised Loot”. One may recall how Dr. Manmohan Singh in answer to a question from media in his last Press Meet as the Prime Minister on January 3, 2014 had said that Modi as Prime Minister will be a “disaster”, which has been proved now with jobless growth, negligible investments from domestic business houses, fudged data on GDP and ever rising social tensions, straining the very idea of India as postulated by its Constitution and the rule of law based democratic system of governance!

letters@tehelka.com