Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednesday said that demonetisation had caused a loss of ₹2.25 lakh crore to India’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Separately, the Congress asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to tell the country who should be held accountable for the “monumental folly”.
Reacting to the RBI’s annual report for 2017-18, Mr. Chidambaram said the country had paid a huge price to demonetise just ₹13,000 crore. “Indian economy lost 1.5% of GDP in terms of growth. That alone was a loss of ₹2.25 lakh crore a year. Over 100 lives were lost. 15 crore daily wage earners lost their livelihoods for several weeks. Thousands of SME (small and medium enterprises) units were shut down. Lakhs of jobs were destroyed.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“Every rupee of the ₹15.42 lakh crore (barring a small sum of ₹13,000 crore) has come back to the RBI. Remember who had said that ₹3 lakh crore will not come back and that will be a gain for the government!?” he said, taking a dig at Mr. Modi.
At a press conference, senior Congress leader Manish Tewari said that while the objectives of demonetisation could not be met, the measure resulted in halving the RBI’s dividend to the government.