Finally, all apprehensions become true. The much-touted demonetisation has failed to deliver the goods. Black money could not be unearthed. The move to transform India from a cash-heavy economy to a less-cash economy did not happen. Instead, many small and medium industries have been closed due to demonetisation. As a result, a lot of people have lost their livelihood. The economic growth of the country has been affected due to the step. Even after two years of demonetisation, the country is yet to fully recover from the sudden announcement of junking high domination notes.
All these facts are not a compilation of those who criticised the demonetization tactic. Rather, these facts were admitted by none other than the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its annual report. Quite naturally, the admission of the RBI has provided new ammunition to the opposition parties to attack the government. So, without wasting much time after the annual report was made public, Congress President Rahul Gandhi termed demonetisation a scam that was meant to help a few influential people and businessmen. The opposition political parties also expressed the same view. Most vocal among them is West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. She is a critic of demonetisation since the prime minister announced the ban on a number of currency denominations. After the RBI made it clear that more than 99 per cent of the demonetised notes were deposited in the bank, she asked the central government to explain why it had failed in tracing black money. Similar questions were asked by many other leaders too.
There is nothing unusual on the part of the opposition parties to put the government in the dock after the RBI’s annual report. At the same time though, the opposition parties should have kept in mind that a move at least was made against black money and corruption. It is a fact that the desired result could not be achieved. But the fact remains that in spite of all the difficulties, the people by and large stood behind the government for taking such a bold step. The strongest evidence to prove the people’s support to the move made by the Modi government was the result of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. It was the first after demonetization, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won by breaking all records. The BJP got the popular vote in that election just because the government had shown the courage to remove black money and corruption from the roots.
Yet, even if the move failed to achieve what it aimed at, it was because there were many loopholes in the implementation process. To be straight, it can be safely said that there was nothing wrong in the decision, but the government had no plans to implement the decision. It is alleged that many people took the help of transporters to make their black money white as the government allowed fuel stations to accept the demonetised notes for a long period of time. So, the transporters took the opportunity to clear all their dues to stations with the demonetised notes. Even government sources admitted that the transporters made advanced payments to fuel stations to get rid of their demonetised notes. All in all, demonetisation was a bold move which failed due to bad implementation.
