Grappling with unending queues and frayed tempers in banks and to check operation of syndicates, the government today decided to introduce a system of marking customers exchanging defunct currency notes with indelible ink while monitoring suspicious deposits in Jan Dhan accounts.

After a review meeting taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last night to discuss the situation, the government has set up a high-powered group under the Cabinet Secretary to monitor supply of essential goods in the wake of disruption of trade due to the shortage of currency notes.

Besides, a task force has been constituted to monitor circulation of fake currency notes in vulnerable areas and to keep a watch on black money being deposited in the system.

“It has come to the notice of the government that in many places the same people are coming back again and again and we have also received reports that certain unscrupulous elements who are trying to convert black money into white, have organised groups of innocent people and are sending them from one branch to another to exchange notes and get Rs 4,500,” Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das told reporters.

“As a result, what is happening is that the benefit of withdrawal of cash is getting restricted to a smaller number of people...to prevent such kind of misuse, the branches of banks to take recourse to use of indelible ink marks for disbursement of cash,” he said.

This would prevent certain syndicates and certain kind of people coming to the branch again and again, he said.

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Published on November 15, 2016