Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Rajya Sabha that the RBI had adequate amount of currency printed in advance in order to facilitate the remonetisation process.

Replying to a question on the Centre’s preparedness before demonetising high value currencies from CPI(M) member CP Narayanan, Jaitley said, “at no point of time, not for a single day, was the currency inadequate.”

Jaitley added that as far as the banks are concerned, the RBI was releasing a specified amount of currency through currency chests every day from November 10 when the remonetisation process had started.

“As far as the ATM machines are concerned, they had to be reoriented in order to accept and release the new notes. Keeping in view the size, thickness , and the weight of the note, the machines had to be recalibrated. To maintain secrecy, this could not be done before the November 8…,” the Finance Minister said adding that the recalibration process took time.

He claimed that the RBI was able to meet the rush. “It is the result of this effort of the RBI in supplying currency consistently that, contrary to what many had earlier predicted, within a very short span of a few weeks, the RBI was able to meet the rush, bring the queues down and successfully carry on the remonetisation process.”

He reiterated that one of the many reasons which prompted demonetisation was to reduce the reliance on cash currency and switch over to more banking and digital transactions.

“From the very beginning, the government had started a massive campaign in order to facilitate and enable the digitisation of the economy. The fact that it was mentioned in one speech and not in the other, I don’t think lends much credence to any contrarian argument,” he said.

Replying to another question, the Finance Minister said the Centre took various steps to curb black money kept outside the country. He said as a part of this drive towards digitisation, the country is moving slowly in the direction where transaction charges, in many cases, are exempted and, in other cases, are being brought down.

He said through an advisory, the government is asking its employees to switch over to digital payments. “Because salaries are being paid to government servants and public sector employees into their bank accounts, they are one section of society which does not have any cash earnings.

“So, the government has thought it proper to advise them, as far as possible, to use either debit cards or any other mode of banking transaction through which it is possible to conduct their transactions,” he said.

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