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Two types of Rs 500 notes: Is Kapil Sibal right in calling this ‘biggest scam of the century’?

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DailyBiteAug 08, 2017 | 18:19

Two types of Rs 500 notes: Is Kapil Sibal right in calling this ‘biggest scam of the century’?

Are there two kinds of Rs 500 notes doing the rounds in the country? Is there something the government is keeping from us, in addition to the exact number of the currency that came back to the Reserve Bank of India after the November 8, 2016 demonetisation diktat was announced?

Mystery after mystery seems to accrue when it comes to the BJP government in the Centre and matters of finances. Whether it’s political funding through the controversial anonymous electoral bonds, or counting the new currency notes, there’s a tremendous amount of opacity in the functioning of this regime.

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The latest installment in this serial governmental secrecy is the curious case of the two kinds of Rs 500 note that are supposedly being printed, that too by the RBI. According to the Congress member and Rajya Sabha MP, Kapil Sibal, “The RBI prints two types of currency notes. These are of different sizes and different design… How is it possible?”

Sibal held out two Rs 500 notes that he said were not alike. In fact, he later told reporters outside Parliament that possibly even Rs 2,000 notes have two types. Sibal said: “I have found two kinds of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes whose dimensions and design differ. How is it possible that two different kinds of notes are printed?”

Senior Congress leader, and the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, has called this the “biggest scam of the century”, adding that the two kinds are notes are meant for different purposes – “one for the party, and one for the government”.

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Sibal added: “Finance ministry should ensure that only one type of notes are printed. The RBI will say return the notes... do they want people to stand in queues again?”

Meanwhile, TMC MP in Rajya Sabha, Derek O'Brien, has given notice for suspension of question hour in the Rajya Sabha tomorrow over the alleged issuing of the two types of Rs 500 notes. Janata Dal (United)’s Sharad Yadav and Samajwadi Party’s Naresh Agarwal also supported Congress in the allegations.

As per RBI standards, the size of a Rs 500 note is 150mm by 66mm, and that of the Rs 2,000 note is 166mm by 66mm. If different kinds of currency notes are being printed, it’s a matter of grave concern for chiefly two reasons:

1) Instead of eradicating fake notes, this time, the confusion and fake currency might be coming from the official source itself. This not only makes the fight against fake currency all the more difficult, there’s now the added issue of what’s the unofficial fake and the official fake.

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This is farcical and beyond acceptable limits of general incompetence that this government has shown in matters of economic importance. Moreover, this calls into question the RBI’s ability to function with precision under duress. A thorough probe is therefore necessary to find out whether the allegations are true, and, if so, at what point the breach took place.

2) In case two kinds of notes have at all been printed by design and not by accident, then that makes matters extremely difficult. If the government had been aware of such occurrence, why has it not make an announcement already to alert the public? If the government wasn’t aware, what is the excuse it’s going to furnish to whitewash one more grave error on its part?

But importantly, what if the government was willingly and intentionally keeping the alleged tale of two Rs 500 notes from the public? What is the reason behind printing two kinds of notes, at a time when horse-trading of MLAs are happening in broad daylight, when the BJP is busy manipulating, buying and stealing election mandates to dismantle and deform governments in various states?

Popular Twitter user and self-styled number cruncher James Wilson, who uses the handle @JamesWils, had dissected the demonetisation diktat as it was announced in a manner which had proved to be bang on target. In his blog, “Decipher the Demonetisation”, Wilson had called this a “monumental disaster in the offing”, also destroying the government narrative that notebandi would have any impact on fake currency.

Wilson had said: “Yes... the Government's own agencies estimated the quantity of FICN as just Rs 400 crores, not even the amount run in to thousand of crores, forget the lakh crores propagated. This Rs 400 crores is only 0.02 per cent of the currency in circulation. Though it is a small quantity, FICN is being used for various subversive activities such as espionage, smuggling of arms, drugs and other contraband in India. As per the NIA probe, which has a Terror Funding and Fake Currency Cell, Pakistan is the major supplier of FICN in India.”

How can the government, in its bid to “eradicate fake currency notes”, end up creating more counterfeit currency in the system? Wilson has also been tweeting his deconstruction of the latest episode of what he calls state “propaganda”, which is to say that income tax returns have gone up by 24 per cent as a result of demonetisation.

It is also important that the alleged case of two types of currency notes comes as reports bring to fore the fact that as much as Rs 81,683 crore worth corporate bad loans have been written off in fiscal year 2017, taking the three-year total under the Narendra Modi government to Rs 2.46 lakh crore.

This, from the finance ministry data, is stupefying, given the hue and cry over farmer loan waivers amid the prolonged drought and suicide crisis that rocked the country for months. How is it that the government is quietly writing off corporate debts, while not giving an account of how much currency exists in the system, how much has come back, and how much of new currency was printed and in what denominations?

It’s mind-boggling that the government had the great idea of tackling black money with the Rs 2,000 note – a bigger denomination than the killed off Rs 1,000 note. Of course, stacks of Rs 2,000 notes were discovered in a number of BJP leaders’ residences during the heated Assembly elections season earlier this year.

Strangely enough, reports of even the Rs 2,000 note being phased out have come to fore. RBI has stopped printing the bulky pink note and would soon be churning Rs 200 notes. The new batches of Rs 500 note are expected to ease the shortage of the pink note in the system.

Now, with the fresh batch of horror in the alleged two kinds of Rs 500 note, a Pandora’s box has been duly opened. What is this government really up to?

Last updated: August 08, 2017 | 18:19
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