HYDERABAD: Anil Bokil, who has been promoting the idea of demonetisation since several years, supported the withdrawal of high denomination notes saying that they had turned into a commodity from medium of exchange and blocked the trickle of money to where it was needed the most.
In an interactive session organised by Junior Chamber International (JCI) Banjara and JCI Hyderabad Trendz here on Sunday, Mr. Bokil felt several more steps have to be taken if demonetisation has to give the desired results. One of them is removing all the indirect and direct State and Central taxes, introduction of the bank transaction tax, and legal limit on transactions of certain fixed amount. The transaction tax could be as low as 0.7% per transaction.
The founder of Pune-based think tank ArthaKranti, who favours digital transactions, said cash transactions don’t have a trail while digital payments are transparent and traceable. The excess cash in the economy has to be streamlined and passed onto the wealth creating sections like farmers and workers. Such a system would help all sections by bringing inflation under control and making cash available at low interest rates.
He was of the opinion that there should not be any note with denomination higher than ₹50, but that should be done over a period of time.
Impact felt
Mr. Bokil also argued that as of now there is no fake currency in circulation in the system after the note ban. All the money received by the banks was white. It will take sometime before commenting on the fruits of the exercise. He felt terrorism or trafficking where black money is used was affected by demonetisation. Union Minister for Employment Bandaru Dattatreya and Telangana Energy Secretary Ajay Mishra also spoke.
