Hyderabad: Despite the government citing reasons hike curbing black money, ending corruption or choking terror funds for scrapping high value bank notes, the main purpose of the shock-and-awe demonetisation drive appears to be aimed at nudging the people to go cashless.
On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself led the government’s efforts to encourage people to opt for cashless transactions, while finance minister Arun Jaitley revealed in Parliament the government’s dislike for hard cash.
The Union Cabinet too asked all departments to switch to online payments completely and set up a panel to suggest ways to promote cashless transactions in the country.
“I want to seek your support. Your mobile phone is not only a mobile phone, (but) you can convert it into your own bank and wallet. If you don’t have one rupee cash, even then, the technology today is such that if you have money in your bank account, you can shop in the market and make payments through mobile and also you can run your business without touching cash,” Mr Modi said addressing a public meeting in Bathinda in Punjab.
On Thursday, former prime minister Manmohan Singh had criticised the manner in which demonetisation step was implemented by Mr Modi.
