Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley today heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking a brave decision to demonetise high value notes from the economy.
Speaking at an event here, Jaitley also rejected reports of cash shortage and claimed that normalcy has been restored in a very short span of time.
“No currency shortage as printing presses of RBI, SPMCIL have ensured normalcy within a few weeks of demonetisation,” the minister said, three months after the government's drastic decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes to fight black money, fake currency and funding of terror activities.
“It was perhaps one of the biggest exercises of demonetisation and remonetisation in the world. Experts said it could take anywhere between seven months to one year for the situation to be normalised. But it was done in a few weeks without any major incidents,” he said.
“Making comments is the easiest thing during demonetisation and remonetisation, and the most difficult job is to implement it. If ever a research is done on demonetisation, a chapter would talk about printing speed, also keeping secretive printing done in advance,” the Minister added.
Yesterday, Jaitley had in Ranchi said that the situation in the country was ‘almost normal after demonetisation’.
Replying to a question on the figure of deposited banned notes, he said, "The RBI will come out with an accurate figure after completing the counting of banned notes."
