10/11/2016
Is demonetisation of Rs.500 & 1000 notes ill conceived?
KRISHNA RAO GOWD•THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2016
Prime Minister Modi’s announcement came as a big surprise and the entire nation was in a state of shock for a while. As the news slowly sunk-in the initial shock turned in to panic for those who are left with huge unaccounted liquid cash in the form of notes in the above denomination and for all others the reality of what it entails dawned slowly.
The opinion was very clearly expressed by general public who hailed the decision though it meant inconvenience of ‘out of expendable cash’ to meet the day-to-day necessities of life. If majority of population were to oppose there should have been demonstrations on the streets and press and tv channels would have been airing the voices of dissent.
Opposition parties were cautious in expressing their opinion lest they are branded pro-black money lobby. Congress party as always came out with some very obnoxious objections.
Salaried class was the first to welcome the move as they always felt that they were the only section of the society who are not rewarded for paying their taxes year on year. Distraught were the Small traders and merchants who were hitherto running their businesses in Cash will eventually have to fall in line and adopt to more fair and transparent financial system.
The timing of this exercise was of course perfect. It is to be seen how well the government machinery moves to see that the exchange of notes to the common man takes place and how quickly normalcy is restored in the markets.
Laudable objectives of curbing black money, corruption, funding terrorism, counterfeit currency etc will be fully addressed and met or not is a matter to be watched and analysed. Acquisition of assets in the form of real estate, bullion, benami investments etc are a bigger menace ailing the nation and we only have to wait and watch what measures will follow next.
So far so good!