Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday wrote to Union Minister for Financer Arun Jaitley about the inconvenience caused to the common man by demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and suggested measures to improve the situation. The CM has urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to ensure that the time limit for use of old currency for exempted categories of payments should be extended till December 30.
The chief minister held a meeting with senior officials of the state government and bankers on Monday in Bengaluru to get appraised about the hardships faced by the public. “There has been much inconvenience to the common public both for exchanging the old notes and also for withdrawing cash from the banks and the ATMs. This is primarily on account of the fact that the banking system does not appear to have been geared up for this mammoth task given to them. I think that these exigencies could have been taken into account and sufficient and practical measures could have been put in place in advance,” the chief minister wrote in his letter.
The central leadership of the Congress, which is in power in Karnataka, has used the demonetization decision to attack the government. Various other political parties also called for an immediate recall of the decision.
The chief minister said the demonetization has added to the problems of farmers. “Cooperative banks are dependent on the currency chests of the commercial banks for their cash requirements. Their usual requirement for banking transactions is Rs 500 crore. Further, they need Rs 600 crore for the disbursement of loans. Against this, requirement of the cash released to them has been drastically reduced with only Rs 25 crore being provided to them in the last five days. This is affecting almost seven lakh customers and farmers,” he said in his letter.
