Kerala will be first to go cashless: Thomas Isaac

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finance Minister Thomas Isaac is hopeful that Kerala will emerge as the foremost  cashless state in the country, even as he is highly critical about demonetisation.  In his new book titled ‘Black money hunt, myths and reality,’  Dr  Isaac says that Kerala even now makes  the highest quantum of digital transactions.  In the backdrop of the cash crunch owing to demonetisation, various fresh initiatives for digital payments were coming up in the state and the government would promote such initiatives, he says.  “One thing is sure, Kerala will be the first state in India to become cashless,” he says. Even before the current digital economy drives by the BJP, Kerala had made much advance  in cashless transactions.  

“Except for metropolitan cities, Kerala is already ahead in this.  There are many reasons for it, including  high rate of literacy, less number of poor people, total banking network, good internet connectivity and lack of  disparity between cities and villages,” he says. Dr. Isaac also says that cashless economy will help curb black money. Tax collection will  become easier once all commercial transactions become digital. However, cashless economy is not the sole solution to curb all illegal dealings, he adds. Though the centre had announced demonetisation with the aim of curbing black money and fake currencies, it  later harped on cashless economy as it realised that the demonetisation exercise would not curb black money or fake currencies. 

“In his November 8 address to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi never used the word cashless economy. The aim of demonetisation at that time was to curb black money and fake currency. The word black money was used 18 times in the address and fake currency five times. After his Japan trip, the Prime Minister realised that demonetisation was only causing hardships to the people and  not attaining its stated objectives. Subsequently, the idea of cashless economy was also introduced to justify the demonetisation drive,” says Dr Isaac. Nations like Sweden that made considerable progress towards cashless economy attained it  not by demonetisation. Banking literacy and internet connectivity are key factors for it, he says.