By: Parmanand Pandey, Advocate, Supreme Court (Secretary General IPC)
At a time when the technology has laid bare almost everything of life, it is quite perplexing that how it has also been able to perpetuate any lie to the extent that people tend to believe it as truth. For instance; when did Narendra Modi, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, say that he would get Rs.15 lakh transferred to the bank accounts of every individual once he came to power? Those who have been hauling Narendra Modi over coals on this issue have not circulated any video so far, that too, when every word of what he speaks from the public platform is recorded and widely circulated.
He has certainly said that the amount of black money that has been stashed away from India was so enormous and staggering that if it was brought back it would be to the tune of depositing Rs 15 lakh in everyone’s bank accounts. This is an easy way of explaining any complex matter. It is like saying that threads produced by a mill will be enough to encircle the earth ten times. In the seventies, a statement was repeated ad nauseam by most of the leaders that the country was sunk so much in debt of foreign institutions and countries that every child in India was born with a debt of Rs. four to five hundred on his/ her head.
Black money from foreign countries might not have brought back because of certain international treaties but there is one undeniable fact that the outflow of Indian money to the foreign countries and banks has largely been stopped. The business of money laundering is dying and it may soon become a thing of the past. This in itself is not a small achievement.
This has been possible mainly because of the sudden shock therapy of the demonetization, which could not have been a hundred per cent successful for two reasons. One was the gang of corrupt bank personnel and the other was the policy of exchange of Rs. 4,000 of old notes for new notes. In fact, everybody should have been asked to first deposit the old notes in his/her accounts and then could have been allowed to withdraw Rs. four or five thousand. This would, without doubt, have helped more effective cleansing of the black money and the corruption of bank personnel and officials would have been minimized.
Despite these flaws, the condition of banks got considerably improved. Many of the banks, which were practically on the verge of the closure and were gasping for the breath, again got sanjeevani for their survival as they became flush with funds. The good effects of Notebandi can be seen in every walk of life. A few years ago, it was a common refrain that country was inflicted with the ‘parallel economy of black money’ but now nobody talks about it as it is hardly in existence. The rates of properties have become, more or less, realistic across the country and it is not flaring up as it used to in the previous years. This is the sobering effect of the demonetization.