Demonetisation a tragedy, says P Chidambaram at Mumbai University

Mumbai: Former Union finance minister P. Chidambaram during his lecture on Tuesday at Mumbai University on ‘25 years of economics reforms and the challenges ahead’ severely criticised demonetisation in the interactive session with students, professors and other guests

Mr Chidambaram, who spoke about Indian economy and biggest challenges it faces, chose to not speak about demonetisation in his lecture.

It all started when a student asked him a question about demonetisation and its effect on the Indian economy. Asked to explain the Centre’s move in terms of efficiency, output and social justice, Mr Chidambaram called demonetisation be a monumental tragedy made by man. Speaking about Indian economy, Mr Chidambaram said the people implementing demonetisation didn’t know elementary economics and should go back to undergraduate college.

Replying to the student, Mr Chidambaram stated that not all cash is black money and hence whoever came up with the idea does not know elementary economics. He also explained that all black money is not cash, stating that only 6 per cent of it is in the form of cash and keeps flowing. This step is, instead, becoming a reason of suffering for many who have to stand in queues.

Giving an example, Mr Chidambaram said there is over Rs 15 lakh crores in old notes, which has to come back to banks, and the government had achieved hardly anything until now.

He said, “Imagine a doctor conducted a surgery but there was no information about the patient’s illness. The doctor did not know which part of the body of patient is affected but the surgery was conducted on some completely different part. It is tragic how farmers, self-employed people and small-scale businesses are the ones that are worst affected due to this move. The government should get sensible about it.”