RBI not accepting old notes major breach of trust: Congress

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel on Sunday slammed Reserve Bank of India for not accepting the scrapped Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 bank notes after December 30. Mr Patel also asked finance minister Arun Jaitley to disclose the amount of money, which came into banks, after the demonetisation exercise till date.

Mr Patel said, “It has been reported that the Reserve Bank of India is now refusing to accept specified bank notes, unless the depositor was not in the country when the demonetisation exercise was announced or he failed to deposit the notes during the demonetisation window period, which began from November 8 and continued till Decem-ber 30. This constitutes a major breach of trust on behalf of the government.”

Mr Patel said the RBI’s decision will affect the vulnerable section of the society, especially those who trusted the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s word.

The Congress launched a month-long agitation to highlight the hardships faced by people across the country. Mr Patel, who is the chairman of the committee of Congress and political secretary to party president Sonia Gandhi, is spearheading the agitations.

The Congress is holding a Jan Vedna Sammelan in Delhi on 11 January to highlight the pain caused by the demonetisation.

Mr Patel added, “The demonetisation policy has already inflicted tremendous hardship on people and has taken a heavy toll on our economy. It was expected that the difficulties, arising due to the policy, would come to an end after December 30, but clearly this has not been the case.”

The Congress also talked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address in which he had announced the demonetisation, and had said that currency notes could be deposited at specified RBI counters till March 31 this year.

Mr Patel said it is surprising that NRIs are being allowed to deposit the demonetised currency notes only in five of the 20 regional offices the central bank has in the country.