THE NEWSMAN OF INDIA.COM
Former Prime Minister and Senior Congressman Dr. Manmohan Singh, in his address on the current economic situation to traders and businessmen in Ahmedabad, said that he was shocked when he heard PM Modi’s note ban announcement last year and “wondered who advised him on this reckless step”.

Dr. Singh said Black money and tax evasion are a menace that need to be tackled, but note ban was not the solution. It had been suggested many times in the past as well, but as a responsible government we never took such a drastic measure. Nowhere in the world has any nation taken such a drastic step that took away 86 percent of the legal tender.The stated objectives of note ban have not been met.

Dr. Singh said that in order to promote a cashless economy, coercive steps like demonetisation are ineffective.

I repeat what I said in the parliament, this was organised loot and legalised plunder. This twin blow (GST and note ban) is a complete disaster for our economy.

The former PM further lashed out at the Centre saying that instead of providing relief to the poor and mariginalised farmers and traders who had suffered from note ban, the government inflicted upon them the “badly-designed” GST.

It’s broken the back of small and medium enterprises. Industrial clusters have been affected and that has hampered production. We had to run for Chinese imports at the cost of Indian jobs. In the first half of 2016-17, India’s imports from China stood at Rs 1.96 lakh crore.