.
But the joke, doing the rounds on social media and through WhatsApp, is that it is mostly the ATMs that have gone cashless and standing in queues to withdraw money is the new normal.
If not for the note ban, the leadership change would have been the most dominant factor of 2016 for the Reserve Bank, but its ‘advice’ to the government to scrap high-value currency notes will keep it busy for a long time to come, and success of the move will determine its credibility as well.
The final word is still to be said on the exact amount of the value carried by the scrapped notes and the estimates so far vary from about Rs 14.4 lakh crore to over Rs 20 lakh crore, even as the so-called ’50-day’ period of ‘pain’ and transition will end this week.
The famous Amul cartoons have poked fun at RBI by calling it ‘Reverse Bank of India’, referring to the issuance and re- issuance of more than 60 circulars already since the demonetisation announcement on November 8.
From Agencies, Feature image courtesy wsj.net
