MANN KI BAAT. Next black money battle will be against benami property: Modi

With just five days to go for the December 30 deadline of easing ‘all cash crunch pains’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged people, especially in rural India, to go cashless, pointing out that “during the past few days, cashless trading has increased by 200-300 per cent”.

Addressing the nation on Christmas Day, in his monthly radio broadcast Mann Ki Baat , Modi highlighted his government’s “battle against black money and corruption”, and said there was no question of a “retreat’. A law against ‘benami’ property would be brought in soon, he added.

“You are possibly aware of a law about benami property in our country, which came into being in 1988, but neither were its rules ever framed nor was it notified. It just lay dormant gathering dust. We have retrieved it and turned it into an incisive law… In the coming days, this law will also become operational,” he said.

Defending the frequent changes to the cash withdrawal and deposit rules by the Reserve Bank of India, he said: “The government, being sensitive amends rules as required, keeping the convenience of the people as its foremost consideration, so that citizens are not subjected to hardships.” He added that “to counter new offensives, we too have to devise appropriate new responses and antidotes.”

Reward schemes Urging people to go cashless, he said rewards and benefits had been announced under two schemes for traders and consumers — Digidhan Vyapar Yojana and Lucky Grahak Yojana — and urged people, especially the rural poor, to use mobile phones for e-payments.

Even the poor can use USSD (unstructured supplementary service data, a technology that facilitates digital payment without the Internet) on ordinary mobile phones to buy and sell goods as well as make payments and thus become eligible for the reward scheme. In rural areas, too, people can buy or sell through AEPS (Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System) and can win rewards, Modi said.

“For the next 100 days, starting today, 15,000 people making digital payments will get ₹1,000 cashback in a daily lucky draw,” Modi said, adding that “a bumper draw will be held on BR Ambedkar’s birthday (April 14).”

On cashless payment of wages, the Prime Minister said that “in a way” this would convert the informal sector into the formal sector, ending the exploitation faced by workers. “The cut, which had to be paid earlier, has stopped now and it has become possible for the worker, the artisan and such poor persons to get their full amount of money.”

In his first radio broadcast after a completely washed out Winter Session of Parliament, the Prime Minister took pot-shots at the Opposition. Citing the President and Vice-President’s “explicit displeasure”, he said “this time the session became the object of ire of our countrymen. Indignation was expressed everywhere about the activities in Parliament”. However, he expressed satisfaction that both Houses had passed the Disabilities Bill.

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