Then: Hang Me If Demonetisation Proved To Be Failure, Said Modi. Now: Demonetisation Was A Disaster, Suggests RBI Report

Reserve Bank of India, after taking almost two years to count returned bank notes, said on Wednesday that as much as 99.3 per cent of the junked notes have returned to the banking system.

Of the Rs 15.41 lakh crore worth of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in circulation on November 8, 2016 when the note ban was announced, notes worth Rs 15.31 lakh crore have returned.

This means just Rs 10,720 crore of the junked currency did not return to the system.

Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan had cautioned that demonetisation was “not a good idea” and that its implementation was “not well-planned”. Rajan even pointed out that this method would do little to eradicate black money menace, rather it will make the situation worse. “One of the costs which people haven’t paid enough attention to is (that) this was money sitting, if you believe it was black money, it was sitting in people’s safes or in their basement. It wasn’t earning any interest,” Rajan told Hindustan Times in an interview.

“Once it gets into the formal system, if you haven’t identified it as bad money, these are people gaining interest on it,” he had said.

The Prime Minister’s Lie

In his 2017 Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had falsely claimed that more than Rs 2 lakh crore of unaccounted had been recovered. “More than Rs 2 lakh crore black money has reached banks and now people depositing such money are being made to answer questions on their origin,” he had said.

Cost of demonetisation

In a series of tweets, former finance minister P Chidambaram said that every rupee of the Rs 15.41 lakh crore – barring a small sum – has come back to the RBI.

“Remember who had said that Rs 3 lakh crore will not come back and that will be a gain for the government?” he said, taking a dig at PM Modi.

“I suspect that the bulk of the Rs 13,000 crore is in Nepal and Bhutan and some that was lost or destroyed,” he said.

Moreover, according to RBI’s 2017-18 annual report, a huge jump in fake currency of Rs 2,000, new Rs 500, Rs 100 and Rs 50 notes was detected in the banking system. Fake currency notes of Rs 2,000 worth Rs 36 million detected between 2017 and 2018, compared to Rs 1.3 million in 2016-17.

‘Hang me’

Post-demonetisation, Modi had defended his government’s decision saying this is “an important step in my fight” against black money and corruption. “I have asked the country for just 50 days. If after December 30, there are shortcomings in my work or there are mistakes or a bad intention found in my work, I will be prepared for the punishment that the country decides for me,” Modi had said.

This was not all, the prime minister even asked the countrymen to hang him, if his demonetisation decision proved to be wrong. “If you find anything wrong with my intentions or my actions, hang me in public,” Modi had said.

With PTI inputs