Mumbai: The Modi government may claim that more and more people are using online mode after demonetisation, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in a report said cash withdrawals from ATM have actually gone up by 27% since the government took the decision to withdraw Rs 500 and 1000 currency notes a year ago.
According to bank-wise statistics provided by RBI, while 56,17,58,639 ATM transactions were made in November 2016, the figures stood at 63,04,70,907 in December 2016, up by 12%, a report by News18, says.
The report says there is also a rise of 27% in the number of ATM transactions when November 2016’s data is compared to September 2017. The volume of ATM transactions has almost doubled in the following year after demonetisation kicked in and rose to Rs 24,22,646 million.
According to the same data, transactions using point of sale (POS) machines at the end of November 2016 were 33,43,78,090, which increased by 58.9% in the next month during the same year to 53,15,44,775.
However, when compared to the September 2017 data, the spike comes down to 13.02%. The amount involved in transactions using POS machines amounted to Rs 8,91,083.7 million, an increase of 51.83% when compared to November 2016 and dipped by 16.91% in September 2017 when compared with December last year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while declaring Rs 500 and 1000 notes as illegal tenders in a suden decision announced on November 08, 2016, said the motive behind banning these high-value notes was to free the country of black money, curbing terror funding, getting rid of fake currency and fostering cashless transactions.
Union Finance Minister Jaitley on Tuesday wrote a blog saying over 110 crore transactions, valued at around Rs 3.3 lakh crore along with another 240 crore transactions, valued at Rs 3.3 lakh crore, were carried out through credit cards and debit cards, respectively. Value of transaction for debit and credit card was at Rs 1.6 lakh crore and Rs 2.4 lakh crore, respectively in the previous financial year of 2015-16.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh however countered the claims made by Jaitly, saying, “Cash in circulation is almost 90% of what it was when demonetisation struck last year.”
With the latest RBI data and claim by Manomohan Singh, a renowned economist and the man behind economic liberalisation of Indian economy after 1991, it can be said that Prime Minister Modi's "cashless India" is still a faraway dream.
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