Amidst relentless attack by the opposition over its demonetisation move, the Narendra Modi government on Wednesday rolled out several measures, seen as a bid to ease common man’s woes due to the prevailing cash crunch. Economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das addressed a press conference in which he announced several initiatives.
Here are seven major announcements you need to know.
- The Reserve Bank of India has imposed certain relaxations on e-wallets, raising the limit from Rs 10,000 to 20,000 in case of individuals.
- No service charges will be levied on the use of debit cards till December 31.
- To ease cash crunch, a total of 82,000 ATM machines have been re-caliberated so far. In few days, all the ATMs will be recaliberated.
- Besides debit cards, no service charge will be levied on digital transactions using feature phones through feature phones till December 31.
- The public banks have informed that there has been a surge in the demand for usage of digital transactions.
- All govt organisations, PSUs and agencies have been advised to use digital payment for paying salaries and other expenses
- NABARD has sanctioned Rs 21,000 crore limit to district central cooperative bank.
Meanwhile, the Modi government told the Supreme Court that there was no shortage of new currency note in the market, but difficulties in transporting them to every nook and corner of the country was causing inconvenience to the masses.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi informed the apex court that crowd outside the ATMs and banks had considerably reduced in the past few days. Rohatgi further claimed that the Modi government had collected Rs 6 lakh crore and was expecting to hit the target of Rs 15 lakh crore.
