The day demonetization was announced by the PM (actually it should
have been done by RBI) opposition has constantly targeted the PM. At each
stage, opposition targeted the PM for mismanagement, long queues and
inconvenience to people. The bigger agony for the opposition was the drying up
of over 2.25 lakh ATMs across the country. ATM was the only means to withdraw
cash (even if in small amounts) without much of hassle of paper work. Therefore
it was inevitable for all of us to see long queues in front of ATMs and that’s what
opposition and media was busy in propagating.
Then it was noted that the `
2000 notes were small and a re-calibration of ATMs was necessary. Although the
calibration of ATMs were undertaken on a war footing and after a month almost
all the ATMs are now re-calibrated, why is it that the notes are still not
available and ATMs are still running dry?
The opposition have missed a golden opportunity to corner the
government on this point. They kept on speaking irrelevant things and
completely missed the relevant point. When government is busy saying that ample
currency notes are available, why the ATMs are running dry?
The re-calibration of machines was undertaken immediately. Many ATMs
were done in a short span of time. Yet what is the reason that the notes were
not reaching them? It is interesting to note that neither RBI nor the
government loads the ATMs with cash. It is done by banks. Maximum cash which is
available with banks is normally loaded on to ATMs to avoid any rush at its internal
counters and further the delays. It was in banks interest to load maximum cash
available with them on to ATMs. Yet what is the reason why banks have resorted
to keep maximum cash with them and load very less cash on to ATMs?
The recent raids conducted by government agencies on hoarders of old
and new cash provides the answer for that. Arrested officials of various banks
proves the point. These very officials were hand in glove to provide huge
amount of cash to their “favourites” and deprive the common man of his minimum
requirements of the cash. The seizures of large amounts of cash from various
parts of the country is a proof of such illegal hoardings of cash. One of my
friend did write on facebook about the maximum amount of cash a person can
hold. Legally, there is no limit till you can prove the legal source of such
funds. However such hoarders are the prime culprits in depriving the common man
his legitimate right.
The opposition could have researched this thoroughly and asked
relevant questions in parliament and cornered the government on this
mismanagement. Finmin, Arun Jaitley would have to accept on record about this mismanagement
and failure in curbing black money and would have to give assurance to curb
such illegal activities by bank officials. Now the government has started
action against such officials, few of them will reach their fate. However the
opposition kept on talking irrelevant points and gave a chance to government to
escape. The opposition has lost a golden opportunity of taking credit of unearthing
such illegal activities and compelling the government to act. That way the
mismanagement could have been completely bought down long back and opposition
could have also taken these actions to public and how their actions compelled
the government to act. This was not done as opposition was busy in projecting
inconvenience (which was there but people were ok with that!!) The longer delays,
mismanagement was “convenient” to opposition. In fact their behavior suggests
that they are more interested in keeping status quo than resolving the problems
of common people.
The opposition does not seem to learn from their mistakes, keep on
doing same mistakes of opposing Modi and talking about Modi. The government on
other hand has gathered all the sympathy by unearthing the cash hoarders and
are successful in projecting that they did their job but few bad people in
system failed the government.
