New Delhi: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel will give a miss to the crucial meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on finance scheduled for Thursday, which will discuss the demonetisation issue and its after-effects on the banking system as well as on the common man. The meeting was much awaited as it will be for the first time that any high-level panel is taking up the much debated issue and the central bank chief was expected to face a lot of heat from the members.
According to sources privy to the developments, Mr Patel has conveyed his unavailability on December 22 to the parliamentary panel, owing to “official reasons”. He will now appear before the committee on January 9, 2017.
This newspaper had reported on December 14 that the parliamentary standing committee on finance had summoned Mr Patel on December 22 to discuss the issue.
Sources said that on Thursday other stakeholders will now be called to discuss the “various aspects” of demonetisation.
If Mr Patel appears before the panel on January 9, he is likely to be grilled about the extent of the RBI’s role in planning the entire demonetisation exercise and whether it had prepared any back-up plan to combat its negative fallout.
Meanwhile, the panel on December 22, will be discussing the burning issue for the first time since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement last month making Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes invalid from November 8 midnight onwards.
Sources said the panel is quite worried over the fallout of the entire exercise, which has been causing a great deal of pain to the common man, and it mainly wants to know from the RBI governor as to how much say did he have in the entire process.
They further added that Mr Patel is also likely to be asked about the kind of planning done by the government over the issue, mainly on what were the key reasons which led to the entire exercise.
