VIJAYAWADA : The Central government is forcing the people to take to digital transactions where every transaction would be chargeable, said economist and professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Prabhat Patnaik.
Speaking at the 28th annual book festival here on Wednesday, he said the government was unnecessarily making the citizens pay charges to companies working as payment gateways. How can the government force the people to pay extra charges on every digital transaction, he asked.
He said 50 days after demonetisation, it is clear that black money cannot be eradicated. The demonetisation has only made our cash on hand to go into banks. There is no attack on black money at all, he said. “Bank chests are full of money, but the economy is in recession. Money is blocked and the people have stopped purchasing even basic commodities as there is no cash, Patnaik said.
Asking Arun Jaitley to stop fooling the people with jugglery of statistics to claim that there is no recession, he said there is no need to reel out statistics when the people are badly affected by the currency crunch.
On the Income Tax raids, Patnaik said that they could have been taken up even without demonetisation. He sought to know why India should move towards cashless transactions when developed countries like the US and Japan are operating with cash.