Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal on Wednesday strongly dismissed the allegations levelled by the opposition describing demonetisation as a scam, and an effort to benefit the millionaires by enabling them to convert their black money into white.
Hailing the decision of demonetisation, Manohar lal while speaking at a seminar here said that corruption is a worldwide phenomenon and various steps are being taken to eliminate it from the society.
But it is a continuous process and cannot be rooted out in a single day. Even after 70 years of Independence, the value of our currency is not good as compared to dollar and this is due to the lack of a proper system, he siad.
The Chief Minister said that the vision of the Prime Minister is very clear and besides demonetisation, Aadhaar, Jan Dhan Yojna and Goods and Services Tax are among the other important steps he has taken to eradicate corruption, ensure transparency and simplify structure.
Post-demonetisation, the incidents of stone-pelting in Jammu & Kashmir have declined by 75 per cent and the incidents of Naxal violence by 20 per cent. Apart from this, the number of tax payers has increased by 26.5 per cent and e-returns have increased by 28 per cent. Digital transactions in 2016 which aggregated Rs 87 crore, had increased to Rs 138 crore in 2017-18, he claimed.
Similarly, the number of Point of Sale (PoS) devices has increased from 15 lakh to Rs 28 lakh in one year, he said.
Haryana Finance Minister, Capt. Abhimanyu, while talking to the mediapersons after the seminar said that the state’s SGST collection has been two and half times more than Punjab according to the figures for the last three months.
Haryana is at fifth position in GST Collection in the country, said he.
Hititng out at the Congress, the Minister said today the former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, had to come on such light statement in the pressure of his own party that he had described it loot in the guise of demonetization. Capt. Abhimanyu said that whether an attack on corruption is loot or 2G, CWG, Colgate Scam, Space Dewas Scam and issues of son-in-law are the loot.
While reacting to the statement made by Congress vice-president, Rahul Gandhi that the GST has been implemented without any preparedness, Capt Abhimanyu said that the GST has been implemented after the Parliament and all State Assemblies passed an Act for the same.
The Finance Minister, however, failed to respond to the media queries related to increase of tax payers in Haryana, black money recovered from Haryana after demonetisation among other issues.
Meanwhile, senior Minister Anil Vij while lashing out at the Congress for observing the demonetisation anniversary as ‘Black Day’, said “Only those parties which have black money left with them” are observing November 8, the first anniversary of demonetisation, as black day.
He added that November 8 can be observed as ‘black day’ for the Congress which was involved in scams of around Rs 12 lakh crore.