Worst of note ban impact yet to come: Manmohan

January 12, 2017 12:32 am | Updated 12:32 am IST - New Delhi:

Manmohan Singh

Manmohan Singh

Warning that the worst of the demonetisation impact is yet to come, the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday described the note ban as a “disaster”, and dismissed as “hollow” Prime Minister Narendra Modi's “propaganda” that things had started looking up.

Pointing out that the 7.6 per cent growth rate reported a few months ago was already down to 7 per cent, with some rating agencies predicting it would plummet further to 6.3 per cent, he said this belied Mr. Modi’s boast of a rise in national income.

Dr. Singh’s comments, delivered at a Congress national convention on demonetisation, comes amid fears of a GDP decline. He said the consequences of a steep fall in GDP “can be readily imagined” and it would hit employment, agriculture and the services sector.

The former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram criticised Mr. Modi for pressuring society to go cashless.

Casting doubts on whether Mr. Modi had consulted other BJP leaders or RBI officials before deciding on demonetisation, he said available records obtained through an RTI application did not mention any Cabinet meeting on the issue.

“Where is it? There is no record of a Cabinet meeting on November 8. Ministers were kept prisoners till the PM announced the demonetisation decision,” he said.

Mr. Chidambaram expressed surprise that the Finance Secretary, the Banking Secretary and the Chief Economic Adviser had not uttered a word in public on demonetisaton in the past two months.

“This was the decision of one person clearly (of a man) who says I am the Fuehrer, I am the Leader,” he said.

Referring to a RBI note submitted to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in which the central bank said the government had written to it, asking it to consider demonetisation on November 7, a day before the PM’s announcement, he said: “In the past, there have been differences between the government and the RBI but the RBI has never been treated as a chhota (small) department of the government.”

Disputing the BJP’s claims on India’s economic growth via GDP, Mr. Chidambaram said that that apart from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, “no one in the world says the GDP will not be hit”. He also said that the many caches of new currency that have been seized in different parts of the country are evidence that demonetisation has not ended corruption.

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