President Pranab Mukherjee has enquired about the impact of demonetisation of big notes and expressed his satisfaction over the measures taken by the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments to mitigate the difficulties faced by people due to the measure, at an official dinner hosted by Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan at the Raj Bhawan here on Tuesday.
Chief Ministers of both the states—K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) of Telangana and N. Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh—sat next to the President during the two-hour long dinner attended by a large number of guests on the sprawling lawns of the Raj Bhawan and explained the various steps taken by them to promote digital transactions in their states.
Union Ministers Bandaru Dattatreya (Minister of State for Labour with independent charge) and Sujana Chowdary (Minister of State for Science and Technology), speakers of Assemblies of both the states, chairmen of legislative councils and a select gathering of celebrities, including sports personalities Sania Mirza and P.V. Sindhu, and several officials of the armed forces were present.
Pranab Mukherjee has been on a two-week long southern sojourn in Hyderabad since 22 December and was back in Delhi on Saturday night. The official dinner was hosted by the Governor, but the list of guests was cleared by the President’s staff, according to sources in the General Administration Department (GAD) of Telangana, who spoke to this newspaper.
Interestingly, the President’s informal discussions with the two Chief Ministers came a day before the Union Cabinet recommended promulgation of an ordinance to impose limits on possession of scrapped currency notes by individuals after 30 December. More interestingly, this ordinance, too, came up for discussion at the meeting.
The President himself first raised the topic of the impact of demonetisation with the Chief Ministers and sought their feedback on the public response in the last eight weeks. KCR informed Mukherjee that despite the inconvenience due to long queues and cash shortage in ATMs,the public cooperated with the banks in complying with the rules.
Naidu, too, gave his account of the situation in Andhra Pradesh, saying that the decision which surprised one and all had taken time to sink in with the people, but once they got the message, there was tremendous support from them to the measure. The first two to three weeks were very tough to deal with in his four-decade long public life, Naidu told the President.
Later, the Chief Ministers explained how they were promoting digital transactions and creating awareness among the public on the benefits of scrapping of big notes to the economy. KCR told the President that he had made a presentation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 18 November in New Delhi on the impact of demonetisation on the states and the steps needed to tackle the issue.
The Telangana Chief Minister told the President that he had sought some relief from the PM to these sections and the Centre was favourable to his suggestions. The CM explained to the President how he had chosen his native Assembly segment Siddipet as a “cashless Assembly constituency” and how people were showing interest in implementing the decision.
Naidu, who heads an official high-powered panel on demonetisation at the Centre, had informed the President how he has been promoting cashless transactions in Andhra Pradesh. The AP CM mostly told Mukherjee about the steps contemplated at the national level to encourage cashless transactions in the coming days.
He spoke about the agenda of the committee which met in Delhi on Wednesday. A slew of incentives are being rolled by the Centre to promote non-cash transactions, Naidu told the President. Naidu also explained how his government has been using e-payment apps to replace cash dealings.
The topic of demonetisation took the centre stage not only at the high table where the President, the Governor, the two CMs and their family members were present, but also at all other tables where the guests talked about the scrapping of big notes and the possible changes after Saturday’s deadline to exchange the old notes. The dinner hosted in honour of the President saw an amount of conviviality between the two CMs—KCR and Naidu—who till recently were openly feuding over a range of issues that concerned their states. “But, in the presence of the President, they behaved like two disciplined school children,” remarked an AP minister who preferred anonymity.
Furthermore, Naidu invited KCR to Amaravati in the first week of January when Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh would be laying foundation for a building of the National Disaster Management Authority and the latter accepted it.