The government’s move to demonetise currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 denomination created some amount of confusion on Tuesday night as some people went to withdraw money as the ATMs were to be shut down for two days.
On Wednesday, some tried to pass off the currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 denomination at petrol bunks. While some petrol bunk operators accepted them, later some of them said that they could not do so as they ran out of change. But they offered to sell petrol or diesel for Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000. At the markets, some shopkeepers refused to accept the currency notes.
Meanwhile, in a press release issued here, Balakrishna Shetty, secretary of the district unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said that demonetisation would hit the common hard as they were least prepared for it. The Union government was portraying it as a move to curb black money and weeding out fake currency notes.
But the fact was that most black money was deposited outside the country. There was no guarantee that black-marketeers would not print fake currency notes of the new Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000, which the government intended to introduce, he said.
