VIJAYAWADA: Ramon Magsaysay awardee Bezawada Wilson has said that the Union government has no right to impose restrictions on people regarding how much money they should withdraw from banks and ATMs per day.
Wilson was taking part in a discussion on inclusive development policies at the 28th annual book festival here on Thursday. He wondered what kind of inclusive development policies the Union government was pursuing.
“Planning Commission members are completely neglecting the poverty issue. Policy makers and ruling class are making fun of people, who are raising voices against irrational approaches of the government,” he said.
Wilson also noted that whoever questioned the leaders and administrators are being labelled as anti-nationals by the government.For Wilson, dynamics of development was a myth in India when Dalit women are worried to send their children to universities in the wake of Rohit Vemula’s suicide. Wilson referred to Radhika Vemula, when she told him that she would not send Rohit Vemula’s brother to any university though he wanted to do research.
The dynamics of inequality
According to Wilson, it is not development when lakhs of people are subjected to displacement and struggling to have a roof over their heads. There are thousands of villages in the country which don’t have electricity, but irony is that the government is surging towards digitisation and cashless society in the name of development, which is quite ridiculous.
Another panel member, professor in political science at JNU, Gopal Guru opined that human interest has to be balanced with developmental framework.
“When surplus resources are extracted from nature beyond the actual requirement, nature will be helpless and will punish mankind with natural disasters,” he said.
Several other experts and senior journalists opined that though the government has given people a window till December 31 to deposit the discontinued currency notes in respective bank accounts or post office accounts. But, the deposits in the accounts are subject to certain conditions prescribed by the RBI. They said the Prime Minister has committed a blunder by imposing demonetisation and pushed the country into a deep economic crisis.