Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has said that disbursal of pension and salary through treasuries has gone awry on Monday following inadequate currency supply in many parts of the State.
Dr. Isaac, after reviewing the situation till noon, said that the Centre was bound to ensure cash supply for disbursing salary and pensions as per the Rs.24,000 withdrawal limit set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Against the Rs.153 crore sought by the government for meeting the cash requirement in treasuries for the day, the RBI could provide only Rs.75 crore, he said.
Considering the currency shortage, certain treasuries limited the payments on their own to meet the commitments. The Minister said he had directed the officials to pay Rs.24,000 itself to a customer on demand. If one treasury runs out of cash, the official had to inform the clients about the details of any treasury in its precincts that had adequate funds using the core banking system. This was mooted to ease the woes of the public who rely on the treasury.
The declared hunt for black money had not yielded the desired results. As per a study of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, the government would have to spend Rs.1,28,000 crore for the demonetisation exercise, including transportation of currency. In addition, banking operations, mainly sanctioning of loans, had been disrupted. If the fall in growth of economy was estimated at two per cent, the total loss for the country would amount to Rs. 2.5 lakh crore, he said.
The reforms may not even yield Rs.1 lakh crore. Still Prime Minister Narendra Modi was maintaining a silence on the issue, he said.
