Terming it as a colossal policy failure, Telangana Industry Minister KT Rama Rao has demanded an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the nation for his decision to impose demonetization, which left the Indian economy crippled.
Ahead of the 6th anniversary of demonetization, Rao wrote on Twitter: “What a colossal failure this demonetization was and let’s not forget how it crippled the growing Indian economy. This half-baked idea led to 8 consecutive quarters of slowdown, subsequently landing in Lockdown in 2020 serving a body blow to the vibrant economy.”
He said the fact that six years after the hasty decision to scrap all the high value currency in circulation, the amount of currency with public has hit an all-time high of Rs 30.38 lakh crore is proof of how spectacularly demonetization has failed.
Contrary to the wild claims made by the government at that time, demonetization resulted in 50 lakh people losing their jobs between 2016 and 2019. Around 88 lakh taxpayers didn’t file returns in the year of note-ban due to job loss or loss of income, he said.
The Minister claimed the MSME sector suffered the most as the units deal mostly in cash and the sudden demonetization resulted in closure of lakhs of MSME across the country. He said that demonetization was just one of the major policy failures by the Narendra Modi government.
The current government was described as one of the worst performing governments by Rao although at the time of demonetization the Telangana government led by TRS had supported the decision of the Centre.