Back in Nov 2016, when Narendra Modi announced demonetisation all of us came into trouble due to lack of money. Lack of ATMs added to the woes of billions of people who were not able to pay for their regular expenditure.
However, there was a belief in mind, that all this is going to be worth it. Narendra Modi himself motivated the people several times to bear the issues for some time as the step will help them in long term.
Now that demonetisation has become the past, cash flow is almost back to normal and India enters in its 71st year of Independence, Prime Minister tells us what the country achieved from his much-criticized step.
While reading the speech of the 70th Independence Day celebration at the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that as per the data from an independent source, a sum of 3 lakh crore of unaccounted wealth had flown into the banking system due to the withdrawal of two high denomination notes.
Speaking at the national event, he said-
“When demonetisation was announced, the world was surprised. People thought that this was the end of Modi. But the way our 125 crore countrymen showed patience and faith, we were able to take one step after another in our drive against corruption.”
Talking more about it, he said that amount of 1.75 lakh crore of suspected black money made in banks after demonetisation, and 18 lakh people with income suspected to be beyond their known sources, were under scrutiny. Of the 18 lakh, 4.5 lakh people are now amending their “mistakes”, while one lakh “who had neither heard of income tax nor paid income tax have now been forced to do so”.
Modi said that we tried to get the black money into banks and make it a part of the formal economy and we have done it successfully.
He also pointed out that the number of additional IT returns filed between April and August 5 was 56 lakhs which is more than double compared to 22 lakh in the corresponding period last year.
Modi also said that over 3 lakh shell companies had been detected, of which around 1.75 lakh had been de-registered.
“Post demonetisation, the reports from data-mining astonishingly revealed that there are 3 lakh shell companies dealing in hawala transactions… Even if five companies shut shop in India, there is a huge public outcry. And here, we have closed 1.75 lakh companies. The looters of nation’s wealth will have to answer.”
Well, we are impressed!