Hyderabad: Former Union finance and home minister P. Chidambaram on Friday asserted that the growth rate of economy has shrunk and it will sink further in the days to come thanks to demonetisation.
He asserted that a purely cashless economy was “invasion of privacy” and shifting completely to digital mode will lead to loss of 1.5 per cent on every Rs 100 spent by an individual.
“If one lakh-crore transactions take place in a day, Rs 1,500 crore is lost to E-valet companies,” Mr Chidambaram said, adding that his party advocates an open economy system.
He said BJP-led NDA government was making terrible mistakes over the Jammu and Kashmir issue. “Kashmir is nearly lost. Human rights interference in Baluchistan will be counterproductive since that country may also raise issues in our country,” he said.
In a lighter vein, Mr Chidambaram said he has no Prime Ministerial ambition and “has to find a country to become its PM”.
Releasing yet another book in English titled “Fearless in Opposition: Power and Accountability” at a function organised by Manthan here on Friday, Mr Chidambaram said demonetisation has devastated the economy and its effect will be felt this financial year and also the next year.
Describing demonetisation as the biggest scam of 2016, he said though Rs 2,000 notes were released on November 14, there were several seizures of crisp currency notes from several people much before.
“From 7.6 per cent economic growth, it will come down to 6.2 per cent, which means a loss of Rs 235 lakh-crore. Many small scale industries have closed in Hyderabad, Medak, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Kanpur etc. It’s not easy to revive SMEs. NPAs will get worse next year. It will take 12 to 18 month for economy to recover pre demonetisation era,” he predicted.
Disputing Maharashtra election results as support to demonetisation policy, he said the conclusions will be bizarre and will be too simplistic.
