The logic behind bringing in the 2000 note and withdrawing it cannot be accepted

- Rupees two thousand notes made the hoarders' work easier

- The operation of this note is completed, the defense that consumers-traders do not use it

- It is not necessary to provide proof of who is depositing the note, so why would the hoarder be caught?

- Opinion - P. Chidambaram

Four of the top five bowlers in IPL 2023 were spinners - Rashid Khan, Y. Chahal, Piyush Chawla and Varun Chakraborty. A common man might be surprised by this as he might think that T20 is for batsmen who like to hit spinners.

Perhaps like the IPL, the current BJP government and the organizations under its administration are seeing a huge demand for walk doctors. The current trend lies in the team of doctors in the RBI and the economists bowling for the government. On May 19, 2023, the Reserve Bank announced the withdrawal of Rs 2,000 currency notes. Clever doctors claimed that this was not demonetisation. Even in the notification issued in 2016, it was not demonetisation but currency notes were being withdrawn.

We were reminded of November 8, 2016. On that day, the Hon'ble Prime Minister announced that currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 will no longer continue as legal tender. With a single stroke of the pen, he declared 86 percent of the currency notes in circulation as illegal. This resulted in chaos, but demonetisation did not serve any purpose.

Flawed logic

On November 8, 2016, the government quietly decided to issue Rs 2,000 notes. Clever doctors wrote off this decision as remonetisation. This time the people of the country came to know two new words demonetization and remonetization and at that time they were swirling in their minds. Why did the government cancel Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes and introduce Rs 2000 notes? Considering the declared purpose of demonetisation, there seems no wisdom in bringing in Rs 2000 notes. It was argued that the objective behind demonetisation was to eradicate fake currency notes, to arrest black money and to stop the funding of terrorists and drug smugglers through fake notes. But terrorists, smugglers and black marketeers welcomed the Rs 2,000 note as it made their operations easier.

In practice, Rs 2000 notes were not particularly useful. Only a few shopkeepers and traders used to accept Rs 2000 notes. Within a few weeks of its release in the market, the Rs 2,000 notes had almost disappeared from daily use and transactions. However, the Reserve Bank continued to print and issue them till 2018. Now it has come out that a large amount of Rs 2000 notes are lying in currency chests or vaults of banks. The rest of the notes have fallen not to common citizens but to a few. No rational answer has been given as to why the Rs 2000 note was taken.

Why was it withdrawn in 2023?

Why Rs 2000 notes were withdrawn in 2023? In a letter written to the banks, the Reserve Bank said that the Rs 2,000 note was introduced to meet the urgent need for currency and the operation of the Rs 2,000 note has now been completed. However, these notices remained practically useless to the common citizens of the country. They used to meet their currency requirement only through the introduction of new Rs 500 notes. No explanation has been given as to why the Rs 2000 notes were printed in large quantities when the common citizens stayed away from them. RBI argued that the life of Rs 2000 notes was only four to five years. If so, this means that the life of low value currency notes like Rs 10, 20, 50 and Rs 100 notes should also be short lived. If these notes can be reprinted and put in the market from time to time, then Rs 2000 notes can also be put in the market. As the story is being built, the wily doctors get caught up in their web of lies. In this process the credibility of India's currency decreases.

India's Nominated Executive Director at IMF K. V. Subramanya says a beautiful thing.- The Rs 2000 notes were meant to entice black marketeers to hoard their unaccounted money and after seven years, it collapsed on them to capture the black money.

A red carpet for Notus hoarders

K. V. Contrary to Subramanian's theory, the State Bank of India had declared that no proof or form was required for the exchange of Rs 2,000 notes. Other banks also followed this decision. It is now certain that just as 99.30 percent of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes were returned to the currency system in 2016, most of the Rs 2,000 notes will also be returned to the system. The government has succeeded in eradicating black money from the country and ending corruption and eliminating drug smugglers and terrorist financiers.

Astute doctors are keeping their cheeks red and waiting for another such opportunity to prove that their practice is the best in the country.