Indians are Still Short of Cash

It has been more than 3 months since Prime Minister Modi announced demonetisation of high denomination currency notes. Since the beginning of February, government has been assuring the Indian people that the economy has been completely remonetised with the new currency. The Economic Affairs Secretary, Shaktikanta Das, went so far as to say that Indians are facing cash crunch only because people are ‘overdrawing’ at the ATMs and banks – implying that lack of cash is not really a problem.

The reality is otherwise. Government’s lies are exposed by RBI’s own data. According to RBI’s latest figures, as on February 3, the total currency with public is only 9.8 lakh crore rupees. On November 8, when demonetisation was announced, the currency with the public was about Rs. 18 lakh crores. Even after 3 months of demonetisation government has not replaced Rs. 8 lakh crores out of the Rs. 15.5 lakh crores of demonetised currency.

Why is the government so slow in remonetizing? Could it be that it does not really want to fully remonetise the economy and wants push e-wallets, credit and debit cards down people’s throats, whether they are ready or not? Or is it simply that the government is totally incompetent and is covering up its failure with lies and more lies?