The Congress party’s leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, faced off with angry treasury benches on Friday as he strongly criticised the NDA government’s November 2016 decision to demonetise high-value currency notes, claiming that the move did not meet the desired goals, as cash in circulation and fake currency have gone up.
He made the intervention during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, saying that the amount of cash in circulation had increased from ₹18 lakh crore in 2016 to ₹31 lakh crore currently. He added that fake currency and deposits in Swiss banks have also increased since demonetisation, indicating a failure to reach its goals.
“The health of the economy is in a bad shape because of demonetisation. Demonetisation was launched with the objective of bringing back black money and stopping fake currency and terrorism. But none of the objectives of demonetisation has been fulfilled,” Mr. Chowdhury said.
He was countered by the BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had taken the “big step” to eliminate corruption and terror financing which had been “rampant” under Congress rule. Mr. Dubey said that the RBI had decided to go ahead with demonetisation to end the menace of terrorism, black money and fake currency. He also alleged that the Congress was siding with the “tukde tukde gang”, and with those involved in corruption.
In November 2016, the government had announced the demonetisation of ₹1,000 and ₹500 currency notes, and the issuance of new ₹2,000 and ₹500 notes. Critics have said that the move hit the economy hard and was unneccesary, while the government has maintained that it helped flush out black money and allowed a switch to digital transactions.
