Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K.S. Alagiri on Wednesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi must release a white paper on the impact of demonetisation that was announced on November 8, 2016.
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In a statement, Mr. Alagiri said that India is facing an unemployment crisis not seen in 45 years and wondered what explanation BJP is going to give for the 150 people who died while standing in queues to take money from ATM machines and banks across the country.
“Former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh called demonetisation as ‘organised loot, legalised plunder’. What he said has been proved right and people are facing a very difficult situation. Prime Minister Modi has to release white paper on the impact of demonetisation to the people,” said Mr. Alagiri.
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Mr. Alagiri added that Mr. Modi must take responsibility for around 2.2 lakh crore shaved off the GDP in 2017-18 and a reduced growth of 7% due to demonetisation. He compared it with the 8.3% growth in GDP in 2016-17.
He added that the RBI report in May said that the counterfeit notes of ₹500 had increased by 101.93% and ₹2,000 denomination by 54%. Counterfeits in ₹10 denomination and ₹20 denomination had increased by 16.45% and 16.48%.
“After demonetisation, the counterfeit notes, instead of decreasing, has only increased. Similarly, Mr. Modi said that the cash-transactions would come down due to demonetisation. However, total cash in the economy has increased to ₹30.88 lakh crore,” he said.