No evidence of wholesale use of Jan Dhan accounts for money-laundering post demonetisation: Chidambaram

Former Union finance minister P. Chaidambaram said on Saturday that there was no evidence that majority of the Jan Dhan accounts were used for money laundering post-currency withdrawal.

Despite his apparent opposition against demonetisation, Chidambaram said, “Evidences do not point out that there was wholesale use of Jan Dhan accounts for money laundering purposes. Nearly 25 per cent of the JanDhan accounts were having zero balances and in the remaining, the average balance was Rs 27,000”.

“Only a small number of such accounts could have been used for money laundering,” he said at Kolkata Literary Meet.

He also alleged that when former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan sent a five-page note to Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing demonetisation, he was shown door.

“The three most important officials of the Finance Ministry--the finance secretary, banking secretary and the chief economic adviser, had not spoken a word in the last 70 days. What does that prove? Either they were not consulted, or if consulted, they disagreed,” Chidambaram raised the query.

Not only this, he also drew attention towards the major implications of demonetisation on MSME sector and GDP growth.

Dispelling the notion that cash crunch is now eased, Chidambaram saying that, “The cash crunch is not easing. It may ease in the metropolitan cities, but in distant areas, 40 per cent of the ATMs do not have cash.”