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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Demonetisation: BJP Talk of "Cash Transfers" To Common Folk Is Sheer Deception -Prabhat Patnaik

Demonetisation: BJP Talk of "Cash Transfers" To Common Folk Is Sheer Deception -Prabhat Patnaik

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published Published on Dec 2, 2016   modified Modified on Dec 2, 2016
-TheCitizen.in

NEW DELHI: A bizarre argument is doing the rounds these days. It states that the cash which gets disabled in the “black economy” because of the government’s demonetization measure, would enable the government to undertake an equivalent amount of expenditure with impunity; it can therefore spend more on infrastructure and other essential areas, or simply provide cash transfers to the people.

BJP spokespersons who have been putting forward this argument, are promising transfers to everyone, in a manner reminiscent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the Lok Sabha elections, when he had promised that “black money” from Swiss Banks would be brought into the country and distributed among the people. Figures of how many thousands of rupees can be given to every family as a result of the present demonetization are being bandied about.

The obvious aim is to divert people’s minds from the extraordinary distress they are currently facing because of the demonetization, by dangling before them the prospects of a bonanza about to come their way.

Let us see exactly what this argument is. Since even before demonetization the Indian economy was saddled with unutilized industrial capacity and surplus foodgrain stocks, there was nothing to prevent the government from providing transfers to the people then; such transfers certainly would have had no inflationary consequences.

Even today, no matter how much “black money” is disabled, i.e. not converted to the new legal tender or deposited in banks, the government can still spend more, or provide cash transfers to the people.

This, apart from being desirable on distributional grounds, would also be beneficial for the present recession-hit economy, by injecting more cash, and simultaneously more purchasing power, into it.

Why then is the issue of providing cash transfers to the people being linked to the amount of “black money” that would get disabled? Where in other words does demonetization enter the picture as the thing that makes such transfers possible?

The answer lies in the fact that if the government spent more on infrastructure or on transfers per se, then, unless it raised more tax revenue (which let us leave out for the time being, since it is not germane to the present argument), it would run a larger fiscal deficit.

Such a larger fiscal deficit, as just mentioned, would have no damaging consequences; on the contrary it would help ameliorate some of the distress caused by the government’s measure. But it would put off globalized finance, since the latter would consider it fiscal “irresponsibility” (especially if the larger fiscal deficit was on account of transfers to the people).

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TheCitizen.in, 29 November, 2016, http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/NewsDetail/index/1/9306/Demonetisation-BJP-Talk-of-Cash-Transfers-To-Common-Folk-Is-Sheer-Deception


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