Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today hinted that not all of the Rs 15.44 lakh crore worth of currency junked will be remonetised through issuance of new notes, as he said digital currency will fill the gap.
Calling the scrapping of old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes "a courageous step", he said the government could do it as India today has the capacity to take such decisions and experiment boldly.
The move will create a new Indian normal as the one that existed for the past seven decades is "unacceptable", he said, adding that demonetisation will help rid the economy of high cash circulation that had led to tax evasion, black money and currency being used for crime.
"One of the efforts of this exercise has to be that even though a reduced cash currency could remain, our conscious effort... (is) to supplement the rest with a digital currency," he said while addressing annual general meeting of industry chamber FICCI here.
Jaitley further said, "The whole process of remonetisation is not going to take very long time and I'm sure very soon the Reserve Bank, by injecting currency daily into the banking and postal system will be able to complete that (sic)."
He said the push to use digital mode to make payments has been gaining ground. "The manner it has taken place in the last five weeks is indeed commendable. Only a section of Parliament seems unaware of what is happening," he said.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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