Notes ban a watershed moment, says Arun Jaitley ; Black day, says Manmohan Singh

Speaking on the occasion of the anniversary of demonetisation, Jaitley hit out at the Congress and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who earlier in the day had called notes ban "an organised loot" and usherer of a black day for India.

"As far as corruption is concerned, the view points of the Congress and ours are completely different. The Congress is for serving a family and we want to serve the nation. Loot is what happened in the allocation of coal blocks or 2G," he said.

Refuting Singh's contention that demonetisation has not served any purpose, Jaitley said the measure left exposed  18 lakh people as having disproportionate deposits.

"Terror funding was squeezed because of Demonetisation, shell companies also being easily identified," he said.

Jaitley  said Rs 13716 cr of undisclosed income detected in surveys in 2016-17 higher by 41 per cent  YoY. .

The Finance Minister said Demonetisation was needed to boot out black money and one of its important objectives was to make India a less cash economy.

"Fall in currency in circulation indicates the objective was met," he said.

"The country was moved to a more transparent system."

"Post demonetisation our country has moved on to a much cleaner, transparent and honest financial system.Which will benefit future generations,aid the Finance Minister said.

Earlier in the day, while speaking at a programme in Ahmedabad, Manmohan Singh called demonetisation an "organised loot and legalised plunder."

The former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh  said the move, along with roll out of GST, has come disastrous for the country.

Speaking during an interaction with traders and businessmen, Singh said the stated objective of demonetisation has not been met.

"I repeat what I said in the parliament. This this was organised loot and  legalized plunder. This twin blow (GST and note ban) is a complete disaster for our economy, it has broken the back of our small businesses and traders."

He said the note ban exercise and Goods and Services Tax (GST) were "badly designed and hastily implemented."

"Black money and tax evasion are a menace that need to be tackled, but note ban was not the solution. It had been suggested many times in the past as well, but as a responsible government we never took such a drastic measure," he said.

"No where in the world has any nation taken such a drastic step that took away 86 percent of the legal tender...The stated objectives of note ban have not been met," Singh said, adding it demonetisation was a black day for both economy and democracy

He said  in order to promote a cashless economy, coercive steps like demonetisation are ineffective.