Retired bureaucrat Vijay Shankar Pandey, who is national convener of lok Gathbandhan Party (lGP), assailed the National Democratic Alliance () government for failing to achieve desired targets through the process of demonetization in November 2016.
Pandey said that the NDA government made tall claims on weeding out black money from the country’s financial system, but the annual report of Reserve Bank of India indicated that 99% banned currency of Rs 1000 and 500 denomination returned to the banks which proves that the whole exercise was meaningless.
In a statement released on Thursday, the lGP Convenor held Prime Minister Narendra Modi responsible for pushing the economy to such a disaster. He also assailed the RBI for recommending such a meaningless measure which placed lakhs of poor people to immense hardship.
“The government’s justification of demonetization is absolutely misleading and untrustworthy.It has not yielded the desired results of pumping out black money, identifying fake currency and stopping terror activities,” Pande said.
The lGP leader said that during UP Assembly poll in February-March 2017, BJP leaders made claims about hitting at black money but now the RBI report has thoroughly exposed them and unearthing fake currency through demonetization turned out to be a big farce.
“Strangely the total value of fake currency amounts to a meagre Rs 43 crore. The adverse impact of demonetization continues to haunt the economy, as the sluggish growth in manufacturing sector has badly hit employment and the farm sector is also passing through a severe crisis,” he said.
Pane said that invalidation of currency has proved a drain on the RBI as its income has drastically plumetted to 17% and placed heavy burden of Rs 21000 crore on printing of new notes. “With 99% banned notes coming back to banks, it seems that exercise was aimed at converting black money into white,” he opined.
The lGP Convener accused the government of helping some vested interests close to the establishment at the cost of poor people many of whom lost their lives while standing in long queues outside banks.
Pande also criticized the banking sector for failing to address the menacing problem of Non-Performing Assets (NPA). “The banking sector in collusion with politicians has virtually pushed the financial system to the brink of disaster. It was amply exposed after large scale irregularities were discovered after demonetization exercise,” hee said.
Blaming the NDA government for its lopsided and inconsistent move to fight corruption and black money, the lGP Convener said that banking sector reforms were long overdue and there appeared to be no commitment in this direction. He said that ballooning NPAs problem was the biggest impediment that has choked Indian lenders’ effective operations.