Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting of senior ministers past midnight on Monday to review the demonetisation process and its impact so far. The meeting, held at the prime minister’s residence, saw Cabinet Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu, Piyush Goyal and other top officials of the Finance Ministry in attendance.
Speaking to news agency ANI, Economic Affairs Secretary (EAS) Shaktikanta Das said that PM Modi took stock of the availability of cash. RBI assured him that there was enough cash available for circulation in the system, Das said. The EAS spelled out a list of steps that will be come into effect from Monday, including granting exemption to “certain category of transactions” where old series of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes can be accepted. “The limit for such transactions is being extended from 14th November midnight to 24th November midnight,” Das said. The old notes will be accepted at government hospitals, petrol bunks among others.
He also revealed that there will be separate queues for those visiting banks to swap old notes. Separate queues for senior citizens and “divyang” will also be implemented to ease the process of swapping currency., Das said. After the finance ministry raised the limit for daily withdrawals to Rs 2,500, Das said recalibrated ATMs will be able to dispense new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes.
He added that a special task force has been setup to expedite the entire process of recalibrating ATMs. The task force will be chaired by the RBI Deputy Governor and it will have representatives of financial services, banks, and Ministry of Home Affairs as its members. “This task force has been instructed to work out a strategy to expedite whole process of recalibration of the ATMs,” Das added.
Post A Comment:
0 comments: