Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetised Indian currency with much touted promises of flushing out black money from the economy, curbing terrorist activities and corruption and introducing a cashless economy. However, with RBI’s latest data showing 99% of demonetised Rs 500, Rs 1,000 returned to banking system, demonetisation has proved to be a failure. A raft of economic data since the note ban decision has signaled that $2 trillion economy was hurt by the cash clampdown, raising fears that the economic growth would stall. With the data suggesting return of 99 percent of the money to the system, one can safely assume that the black money, instead of getting extinguished, has whitened.
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