Note ban benefit pegged at Rs 73,000 crore

Mumbai: Against trillions of rupees of fiscal and tax gains projected from the note ban, a domestic brokerage on Wednesday said that the government may gain only Rs 72,800 crore from the move — taxes, penalties worth Rs 32,800 crore and Rs 40,000 crore by way of surplus transfer from the RBI.

Many pro-demonetisation economists and analysts had in the early days of the move claimed at least 20 per cent of the Rs 15.55 lakh crore of cancelled money would not come back to the system, which in turn, could enable the RBI to write off that amount from its balance sheet. The profit accretion could then be transferred to the government by the RBI as surplus transfer.

While RBI had publicly cited only Rs 15.55 lakh crore of notes were cancelled on November 8, in an RTI reply, it had said the actual quantum of bills cancelled was much higher at Rs 20.51 lakh crore. “With the government collecting only abo-ut Rs 73,000 crore in 2017-18, it is highly unlikely for it to be able to meet high expectations of providing stimulus to almost all sections of society. “Almost half of this is expected to be used to provide relief to tax payers, while the other half could be used for pro-poor schemes,” it added.