This refers to the editorial, “A cashless society” (April 19). In December 2016, a few days after the Government stripped high currency notes of their statutory status, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley expressed his satisfaction at the completion of the remonetisation process which, according to him, was making a “substantial headway”. He claimed that the demonetisation experiment “would mark the creation of a new normal for India”. He dismissed any unfounded fear about remonetisation being a time-consuming process and argued that “the RBI, by injecting currency daily into the banking and postal system, would be able to complete it”.
Since then, the Government has announced a slew of measures to ease the cash crush. To facilitate e-payments directly through the banks and to promote cashless transactions, the Government launched the Bharat Interface for Money mobile application. Transaction charge on debit cards too was waived off to encourage the use of plastic money and financial inclusion is being increasingly emphasised upon in the new paradigm of banking where “banking is necessary, not banks”.
The alleged cash crunch in certain parts of the country is one of the many teething troubles for a cash-based economy which is trying to make a transition to a cashless economy. The Government and the RBI are trying to reassure the citizens of their commitment to remonetise the economy. It is time political parties stopped reaping political dividends by conjuring the ‘ghost of demonetisation’ and stoking false beliefs in peoples’ minds by juxtaposing banking troubles and bank frauds.