Mumbai: Referring to the Reserve Bank of India’s data, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said not all money that returned to the banking system after demonetisation was legitimate, The data on note ban was released on Wednesday.
“The fact that money got deposited in banks does not make it legitimate money. My next step is going to be to put an end to black money used in elections,” he said, as per a report by DC.
The RBI said in its Annual Report 2017, which got released on August 30, that it received Rs 15.28 lakh crore worth of scrapped currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination, which is 1% less than the total value of currency notes at the time of demonetisation. While, around 99 % of the total currency in circulation valuing Rs 16 lakh crore has returned.
Earlier, the RBI had refused to disclose information on note ban citing ‘national interests’ while rejecting an RTI plea.
Jaitley, while speaking at an economic summit, said private sector will have to pay up or let someone else take over.
“Bad loan resolution process will take time, cannot have a surgical solution to it,” says Jaitley. Indian banking sector is ailing with a burden of huge debt. Estimates say banks are staring at bad loans in the range of Rs 8 to 11 lakh crore.
Jaitley also repeated what he has earlier said on many occasions, “Demonetisation will benefit in medium and long term even if it hits GDP in two or three quarters. Fallout expected out of demonetisation is on predicted lines.”