Demonetisation- How It Brought Dead Accounts Back To Life

The move to abruptly demonetise notes left most of the middle and lower class  in a state of shock and panic while a few of the few found wicked ways to convert ‘black into white’ with creative ways that ranged from back-date billing to purchase of gold to transfer funds into those bank accounts which otherwise would have remained at minimum balance for eternity….

POINTS OF CONCERN
1. The announcement of this historic move saw the activation of 80.14 lakh dormant accounts as the throwing of the unexpected ‘curveball’  forced many to rush to banks (after probably not using such accounts for months) to exchange their old notes.
2. In responses to several RTI applications, it has been revealed that in 12 Public Sector Undertaking banks, as much as ₹31,300 crore had been deposited in accounts within the time period from November 9, 2016, to December 31, 2016.
3. While Punjab was the clear standout case, with total deposits amounting to whopping ₹4843.91 crores, states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, and Gujarat followed the list with positions as second, third, fourth and fifth, respectively.Fact: UP and Punjab were poll-bound during the same time frame.

BANKS’ RESPONSE
Banks have provided varied and greatly non uniform data in response to the RTI. SBI and IDBI came up with a denial stating that compilation of such huge data would result in wastage of public resources while Punjab and Sind bank recorded the data under a head called ‘transactions’ which is odd considering the accepted head for furnishing such data is ‘deposit’.

Reserve Bank Of India in its annual report for the fiscal year 2016-17 stated that 99% of demonetized currency notes of Rs. 1000 and 500 have come back into the banking system since note ban i.e midnight of November 8, 2016.