Archives for 2017

Mumbai: As much as 99 per cent of the junked Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes have returned to the banking system, RBI said Wednesday, prompting opposition to question the efficacy of the government’s unprecedented note ban decision to curb black money and corruption.

The Reserve Bank, which has so far shied away from disclosing the actual number of junked currency deposited after November 8 last year, said in its Annual Report for 2016-17 that Rs 15.28 lakh crore of the junked currency had come back into the banking system, leaving only Rs 16,050 crore out.

As on November 8, 2016 there were 1,716.5 crore pieces of Rs 500 and 685.8 crore pieces of Rs 1,000 in circulation, totalling Rs 15.44 lakh crore.

Post-demonetisation RBI spent Rs 7,965 crore in 2016-17 on printing new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 and other denomination notes, more than double the Rs 3,421 crore spent in the previous year.

The demonetisation was hailed as a step that would curb black money, corruption and check counterfeit currency but RBI said just 7.1 pieces of Rs 500 note per million in circulation and 19.1 pieces of Rs 1,000 notes per million in circulation were found to be fake in its sample survey.

Opposition was quick to seize on the data to attack the government with former finance minister P Chidambaram saying, “RBI ‘gained’ Rs 16000 crore, but ‘lost’ Rs 21000 crore in printing new notes! The economists deserve Nobel Prize.”

“Rs 16,000 cr out of demonetised notes of Rs 15,44,000 cr did not come back to RBI. That is 1 per cent. Shame on RBI which ‘recommended’ demonetisation,” he tweeted.

Chidambaram also wondered if demonetisation was “a scheme designed to convert black money into white?”.

Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal said his party would move a privilege motion against RBI Governor Urjit Patel for misleading a parliamentary panel on the issue.

RBI said just 8.9 crore pieces of Rs 1,000 notes or 1.3 per cent of the scrapped ones have not returned. It, however, did not give a specific number for the old 500 rupee notes.

“Subject to future corrections based on verification process when completed, the estimated value of specified bank notes (SBNs) received as on June 30, 2017 is Rs 15.28 trillion,” the central bank said.

After the note ban, old notes were allowed to be deposited in banks, with unusual deposits coming under income tax scrutiny.

A collateral damage as a result of rise in printing and other cost was dividend RBI pays to the government.

RBI said its income for 2016-17 decreased by 23.56 per cent while expenditure jumped 107.84 per cent.

“The year ended with an overall surplus of Rs 306.59 billion as against Rs 658.76 billion in the previous year, representing a decline of 53.46 per cent,” it said.

The government replaced old Rs 500 notes with new ones, but no replacement for Rs 1,000 notes have been made. Instead, a new Rs 2,000 note was introduced post note ban.

RBI said there are as many 588.2 crore of Rs 500 notes, both old and new in circulation as of March 31, 2017. As of March 31, 2016, there were 1,570.7 crore Rs 500 notes in circulation.

As many as 328.5 crore pieces of new Rs 2,000 notes were in circulation as on March 31, 2017.

Besides, new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes, the RBI has also circulated new Rs 200 notes last week.

Former RBI Deputy Governor R Gandhi said demonetisation will have long-term impact.

Expectations of various quarters that sizable portion of the demonetised currency won’t return has not been fulfilled.

(PTI)

Mumbai: At least 10 persons were killed and another 20 injured when a six-storeyed old residential building collapsed near J.J. Hospital here on Thursday, an official said.

Another 60 people are still feared trapped under the debris of Huseini Building, which came crashing down with a huge booming sound around 8.25 a.m.

War-like efforts were on to rescue those trapped, a BMC Disaster Control official said, adding the death toll could increase.

Twenty persons were rescued from the rubble within three hours of the incident, he added.

The building is situated in a heavily congested locality of south Mumbai’s C Ward, and rescue teams with their big vehicles and heavy equipment faced a tough time approaching the crash site.

The injured, that included two firemen, were rushed to hospital.

According to a woman, the building also housed a nursery-cum-playschool. The playschool was scheduled to open at 10 a.m., two hours after the building collapse.

Local residents, mainly Dawoodi Bohra community members and others, initiated their own manual rescue efforts, moving the rubble with their hands to help the victims.

A 90-strong team of NDRF, State disaster management, a 150-strong team of fire brigade personnel and workers, two sniffer dog squads, electronic gadgetry along with five fire engines, two JCBs, one crane and other machines were deployed to rescue the people buried under the massive heap of rubble.

A BMC bulletin at noon said the structure included an uninhabited godown on the ground floor and total 10 tenements on the remaining upper floors.

It added that the building – a Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) cessed structure – was part of the Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT) redevelopment project, and declared unsafe for living at least six years ago.

“The dangerous building was served evacuation notice in 2011 and the occupants ordered to vacate it to make way for the SBUT redevelopment project, but they failed to heed the warnings,” said a BMC official.

According to the Fire Brigade, the building’s two wings have completely collapsed. The cause of the crash is being probed.

This is the first major building collapse after Tuesday’s deluge in Mumbai, and the second in five days after the Chandivali Crystal Business Park crash on August 26, that claimed six lives.

(IANS)

Chennai: A second year BCom student in Madurai hanged himself, in another apparent case of suicide under influence of the Blue Whale challenge, and the first such case from Tamil Nadu.

19-year-old Vignesh from Chennai hanged himself in his room, having reached the end of the challenge. Police found a whale cut into his arm and a suicide note in his room which said “Blue Whale- This is not a game but danger. Once you enter, you can never exit”.

Early investigation revealed that his friends found Vignesh was spending long hours on his phone, going through with the challenges as they were issued to him.

The Blue Whale ‘game’ has become a bane to the Central government, with the Ministry of Electronics and Telecommunications issuing a directive to web giants like Google and Facebook to scrub all references to the game from their search results, as the game is not an application and must be ‘played’ through specific forums and websites.

The game is run by a group of ‘moderators’ who come in contact with potential ‘players’ and issue them instructions to perform 50 tasks, either on the day of the task or in advance. The tasks can range from mundane works like watching a video to gruesome ones like inflicting self-harm by means of cutting words or drawings onto the players’ arms and legs. The final task is to commit suicide.

The game originated in Russia, and its creator, Philipp Budeikin, who was a psychology student, confessed to creating the game, claiming he wanted to “clean” society by removing those he deemed to have no value.

(Agencies)