Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday that there is no need for people to rush to banks to exchange demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in initial days as they have ample time.
“We are trying to ensure at the earliest that the required currency is available with the people. We do believe there is no need to rush in the initial days because people have lot of time till December 30. So more the deposits and exchanges are spread out, the more will be the convenience to the people itself,” said Mr Jaitley at the high profile two days Economic Editor’s conference organised by PIB along with finance ministry in the national capital. He said a large number of ATMs will start operating from Thursday midnight after which the inconvenience will ease.
Finance minister said traditionally people in India have habit of keeping some money at home for emergency and they have no reason to worry to exchange it.
He said those depositing large amounts of unaccounted money will have to face the consequences under tax laws, which provide for tax and a 200 per cent penalty.
“With regard to people making small deposits, nobody will face any question or harassment of any kind. People who have small amount of cash at home for exigencies and emergencies, they can deposit that in their account. And the revenue department is not going to take notice of small depositors,” Mr Jaitley said. He added that deposits within the tax exempted limit can always be made within the banking system without any questions being asked.
Mr Jaitley denied reports of any move to digitise personal lockers in banks to smoke out gold used to store blackmoney. “Completely factually incorrect. There is no such proposal,” he said. There are rumours going around on social media that the government may next digitise bank lockers which would be opened in presence of revenue officials.
There will be a few days of inadequacies of currencies and some impact on local purchases, but in the medium and long run, the overall impact of the recent steps that “we have taken on the economy will be positive”, Mr Jaitley added.
