Kartavya Khanna, a journalism student of Jagran College of Management and Mass Communication, spoke about the issue of demonetisation in a college program. In his speech, he highlighted how the policy that was thrust upon the people of India on November 8th has been a failure on multiple fronts.
He spoke about how not a single cent has been given in form of compensation for all the people who died due to demonetisation, how when multiple families were struggling for cash for the weddings in their families with many having to cancel their weddings, some BJP leaders had lavish weddings for their offsprings. He also spoke about how demonetisation has failed in its stated aims of stalling terrorism and separatism in Kashmir.
In this day and age of WhatsApp based propaganda, it is heartening to watch young voices speak out in a discerning fashion on such issues when even adults seem to have lost their sense of judgement. It will soon be four months since demonetisation was announced and we still do not have an official figure from RBI as to how many of the banned 500-1000 notes were deposited. Many media reports have stated that a majority (97%) of the banned notes have come back into the system. If these media reports are to be believed, then after an exercise which is expected to cause a 1-2% drop in GDP, had a huge adverse impact on the informal sector with many daily wagers losing their jobs, caused the deaths of dozens of people, especially senior citizens, and brought untold misery to people in rural areas which have much less density of banks and ATMs as compared to urban areas, what has the country gained? And while this wrecking ball was being swung at the people of this country, every second day, the Government would announce a new objective of demonetisation, every few hours RBI would change its policies, thus giving further credence to the belief that the Government undertook this exercise purely with political dividends in mind and without any planning.
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