Former Union Finance Minister and Congress’ Rajya Sabha member P. Chidambaram on Saturday suggested that his party could have done more to oppose demonetisation.
He was responding to a question from a member of the audience at the Chennai launch of his book ‘Fearless in Opposition — Power and Accountability’.
The event was organised by the Madras Management Association at the E Hotel. At the end of a panel discussion, Mr. Chidambaram was asked why his party had not aggressively opposed the technical aspects of demonetisation.
“We have spoken on demonetisation. If you say we could have done better, I am willing to accept it. You are our masters. Your judgment on that, I accept it —we should have done better,” he said.
Even as he said that the Congress leadership decides who speaks on particular topics, Mr. Chidambaram pointed out he had spoken extensively on demonetisation. “I have given interviews to practically every channel, written six columns on demonetisation, spoke yesterday on demonetisation. I don’t think it is correct to say I have not spoken,” he said, adding that his speech on demonetisation in Parliament was received in silence by BJP memers, some of whom agreed with him in private later.
Mr. Chidambaram criticised the recent decision by some private banks to impose fees on cash transactions beyond certain thresholds: “It’s completely retrograde. There are many people who receive weekly wages in this country. So those who receive weekly wages will deposit the cheque every week — why should he pay the charge?” Later in the interaction, he called the practice of levying cess “retrograde tax,” saying it should be used as a temporary measure.
‘Cashless is not costless’
He went on to criticise the additional costs for the customer when going cashless: “Cashless is not costless. Cashless carries a cost, which the government has so far not yet admitted, which I have spoken about.”
“Every digital transaction costs you between 0.5% and 1.5%....If you assume a very conservative figure: that the total volume of transactions in this country is [₹] one lakh crore a day — it is many times more — if all that was done digitally, somebody is going to make a [₹] 1,500 crore-a-day profit. I won’t be surprised if that turns out to be the Chinese owner of a Chinese company,” he said.
Mr. Chidambaram said the current government’s inability to create jobs, to motivate people to invest and to get people to spend are its biggest mistakes. “The most unspoken fear in this country is, “Where are the jobs for my children?”....We are sitting on a powder keg....We cannot have millions and millions of people in this country without jobs,” he said.
