Mamata hands over letter to RBI guv in Kolkata, informs about tea workers's plight

Talking to the media after the meeting with RBI governor Urjit Patel, Banerjee said that it was a positive meeting in which the stand of the West Bengal government was placed before the governor.

Post demonetisation, Banerjee said, "Businesses are suffering losses. The unorganised sector is facing lot of difficulties. In the tea sector, Bengal is getting step-motherly treatment while workers in Assam are receiving their wages."

Banerjee said that she has asked the RBI chief to put up on their website details of money sent to every state.

The chief minister said, "The Parliament is not functioning. PM is not speaking to the country. This is a massacre on the country."

Talking to the media, chief minister Banerjee said, "RBI is a big institution. I do not want to cast any aspersions on them."

During the meeting, which lasted over an hour, the chief minister handed over a letter and a memorandum to the RBI governor, regarding the problems being faced by the country and by her own state owing to the demonetisation.

Banerjee began her letter by saying, "The whole country is going through an unprecedented misery and sufferign due to the cruel misadventure of demonetization which has not been seen in any modern democracy."

Then she went to explain how the workers across sectors and the country are 'facing unemployment and hunger' owing to the demonetisation and the cash crunch.

She said, "The tea workers of West Bengal are dying due to non-payment of wages over a fortnight. The jute workers of our State have lost their jobs and going back [to] their villages with nothing in their hands but hunger."

She pointed out that not only 'all development works have also come to stand still due to cash crunch' but that that 'plastic card is not fool-proof and 92% of the villages of the country have no banks'.

In a more direct address to the RBI governor, in her letter, Banerjee said, "As the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, an autonomous institution with a great history, which issues currencies to the nation, we expect you to stand up against this demonetization onslaught against the common people of the nation at this moment of crisis, rather than falling silent and remaining opaque."

Banerjee  said, "We would also like to know from you the nature of allocation of new currency to each of the States in a spirit of transparency and accountability, since there are serious concerns of political discrimination amongst States."

Along with the letter, she enclosed a memorandum of specific problems which she said, "needs to be addressed immediately by the RBI in our State".

In the memorandum, among other things, problems being faced by the agriculture sector were given in detail, such as no cash to make purchases of Kharif crop input, potato seeds and Rabi crop inputs. It was mentioned that cooperative banks, which are the main sources of credit for the rural sector are starved of cash.

It was stated that as against total requirement of Rs 2,903 crores, the State Cooperative Bank has received Rs 565 crores till date.

The memorandum also pointed out that people from Bengal, who work in the MSME sectors in other states, are being forced to return to their home state as these sectors all over the country are working at reduced levels or have shut down. More than two lakh workers have returned to Bengal being jobless.

In the memorandum it was mentioned that 'there has been severe dislocation in the payment of wages to tea garden workers where there is hardly any presence of banking services as these are in far flung hilly and tarai regions in North Bengal. The Assam model (payment through District Magistrates) which was adopted to facilitate wage payment was discontinued in West Bengal by the RBI whereas it is still continuing in Assam'.

The memorandum also gave details regarding the inadequate banking network/services in the state as well as the severe cash crunch of currency of smaller denomination in the banks and ATMs across the state.

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