Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday took a potshot at the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government and said another Rs 50,000 crore should be added to the Centre’s demonetisation cost announcement. Chidambaram’s comments came a day after it was reported that the Reserve Bank of India will pay Rs 30,569 crore as dividend to the government for the financial year 2016-17, less than half of Rs 65,876 crore it had paid last year. Economists believe a ban on currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 increased the RBI’s expenses.
“Cost of demonetisation: Add another Rs 50,000 crore revealed by RBI,” Chidambaram wrote on his official Twitter handle on Friday. “Will the RBI reveal the breakdown of the Rs 50,000 crore loss/expenditure?”
The apex bank is expected to publish its annual reports next week. “Will RBI also tell us the cost of destroying old notes and the cost of printing new/replacement notes?” he said in another tweet.
This year’s dividend amount is the lowest since 2011-12. The government had accounted for a dividend of Rs 74,901 crore from the RBI and other financial institutions in the Union Budget for 2017-18. However, an official had later said that the RBI’s share had been reduced to Rs 58,000 crore.
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