Opposition escalates protest against demonetisation with Plans for Bharat Bandh Nov 28
ATMs still face queues
By TN Ashok /New Delhi
Opposition parties Wednesday announced a Bharat Bandh on November 28 to protest Demonetisation and its effects even as government enhanced relief for the rural sector directing national rural bank NABARD to sanction Rs 21,000 crores to cooperative banks, making new denomination notes available in 1.5 lakh post offices, doubling e-wallets’ capacity and paving the way for service charge free electronic transactions on ‘feature phones’ too, until December 31.
As many as 13 opposition parties led by Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), BSP first held a protest rally outside parliament near the Gandhi Statue and later announced a nation wide protest bandh in states where it was in power or had a significant presence.
The opposition continued to paralyze the proceedings of both houses of parliament sticking to their demand for PM’s presence in the houses and admission of adjournment motion notices with voting to discuss the issue that has blocked parliament for a fortnight now in the winter session.
The ruling party has been insisting on discussion stretching to as many as three days but without adjournment motion and voting. Opposition strategy has been to corner the government with adjournment motion and voting because it would be able to record its protest and sort of move a censure motion against the government. This the government has resisted so far.
Union Urban Development Minister M Venkiah Naidu strongly defended the governments demonetization move saying the nation was backing it and that the people wanted the house to function and debate this issue. “The whole nation is backing the Prime Minister on this decision,” he said’even as the PM launched a drive to get people support on twitter on his NM app. .
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee held a protest demonstration at Jantar Mantar, a prominent heritage monument and landmark, just a few kms from parliament. “Farmers, she said , had lost their savings due to demonetization. How are they going to survive. What about money in Swiss Banks.” “When our country’s economy was moving at a steady rate, government brought in demonetization that really shuffled our country. ”
“I challenge BJP, that this time nobody will support them, even their own workers will abandon them,” she alleged.
Elaborating on the new measures to alleviate the demonetization effect, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said : “To ensure that farmers get credit and certain quantum of credit by way of cash (for wage payments, etc.), NABARD and RBI have also been advised to make the required cash available to district central cooperative banks.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley held a video-conference with NABARD and the RBI and advised them to carry out the entire chain of activities smoothly.
Shaktikanta Das also announced there would be no service charges – levied by anyone – for using any debit cards and doing online railway ticketing until December 31.
These measures will benefit not just people who have smart phones but people who have the simpler feature phones. As many as 65% of mobile phones in India are the simpler ‘feature phones.’ A cascading effect of service charge reduction will lead to these free online transactions, Shaktikanta Das observed while addressing a press conference.
The railways already announced yesterday there will be no service charge on online booking until December 31.
TRAI has also reduced USSD charges to 50 ps from RS 1.50, Das said adding it would benefit digital transactions through feature phones … The USSD charge reduction will be matched by telecom companies which are on board to waive even the remaining 50 ps. So for all digital finance transaction on feature phones, there will be no service charge till December 31.
The government has decided on these measures to benefit farmers and to promote digital transactions, Das added.
In addition, Das said that 82,000 ATMs around the country have been re-calibrated so far, “so it’s only a matter of few days (that) all the ATMs will be re-calibrated.”
Das also announced a pilot program in 20 banks that were using a new Unified Payment Interface mobile phone application (app). This app will enable not just making payments but also getting payments, all instantly, in real time. The transaction limit in using this app is Rs 50,000.