Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday called the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes a “surgical strike” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on black money, PTI reported. Parrikar said the country’s public were “wholeheartedly” supporting the move, which was announced by Modi on November 8.

“This is [a] war against black money, which affects the economy of the state,” Parrikar said during a rally organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Goa’s Panaji. “Black money is responsible for inflation in the country.” The move had also prevented criminal and militant groups from funding their operations, the Union defence minister claimed.

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He said Goa had begun to transition towards a “cashless society” and said that state government and bank officials would “educate people on the use of mobile [phones] for cashless transactions”.

Parrikar’s remarks came even as Modi said that there was no “simple cure to eradicate a disease that has infected our country for 70 years”, referring to corruption. In his 26th Mann ki Baat address to the nation, Modi had said he understood “the inconvenience people are going through” because of demonetisation, but emphasised that it will take a minimum of 50 days for normalcy to return.

Separately, Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel said the central institution was “taking all necessary actions to ease the genuine pain of the citizens who are honest and have been hurt” by the discontinuation of high-value currency notes. Patel said the central bank is monitoring the situation on a daily basis and was making sure that printing presses were working at capacity to make the new notes available to meet the demand.

There has been a surge in deposits made at banks since the government scrapped the high-denomination currency. The country has been grappling with a cash crunch, with the RBI and Centre’s repeated revision of rules on exchanging the old notes.