People Hunger for money at cash starved banks and ATMs
By TN Ashok / New Delhi;
Even as over three weeks have elapsed since demonetization of high value currency notes, India was left cash hungry with people continuing to throng banks and ATMs to take out their own money for daily needs and opposition parties battling with the government and filibustering in parliament , leading to adjournment of both houses.
Long queues were still seen at banks and ATMs as people turned up on pay day to take out money from their accounts only to be told by bank staff that the limit was Rs 5000 as they had run out of cash to dispense.
Rural economy based entirely on cash transactions continued to grope in the Rabi season for sowing for the winter crop even as government was rushing cash to RRBs and district cooperative banks to bail them out. According to a statement by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley some Rs 21,000 crore had been allocated for the purpose to sustain the rural economy.
In parliament , in the Rajya Sabha, The Trinamool Congress, supported by Rajya Sabha Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad raised the issue of Thursday night’s reported “army deployment in West Bengal”. West Bengal Chief |Minister Ms Mamta Banerjee had likened it to a “military coup” earlier.
Today being PMs day in Lok Sabha, |Narendra Modi was present in the house , but that still didn’t soothe the ruffled feathers of the opposition which continued blocking proceedings on demonetization and Nagrota terror attack leading to its adjournment for the day.
Government in its sustained firefighting efforts to contain the fall out of demonetization on the people had appointed two parliamentary committees to review the situation nation wide.
The committees, chaired by Congress members, decided to call RBI Governor Urjit Patel to examine the governments’ “monetary policy” and assess the “impact of demonetization” at a time when the House was paralyzed with neither the ruling party nor the opposition led by Congress and the TMC in any mood to back off and yield on their respective stands on the mode of debate.
The opposition led by Congress has been demanding adjournment of the house to discuss demonetization with voting, while the ruling party wants discussion without voting as it feels a message that the house was divided on the demonetization issue should not go out to the public.
It may be recalled , the Standing Committee on Finance, headed by senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily, decided Wednesday to call the RBI Governor to discuss the impact of the demonetisation decision. The Public Accounts Committee, headed by K V Thomas, decided Thursday to call Patel, Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das and Financial Services Secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal in the first week of January to discuss the issue.
Both houses will meet Monday Dec 05 to find a way of resolving the deadlock. Parliament is scheduled to adjourn December 16 for the Christmas break. The next session of parliament is being advanced to February One 2017 for the budget session.
The union budget for 2017-18 is to be presented now on February 01 2017 instead of the customary February 28. This time there will be no separate railway budget as the government has decided to merge the Railway and Union Budgets together. This will free the Railways of paying the government dividend and help it conserve resources for its future expansion programs, it is learnt.