After announcement by Narendra Modi on demonetisation of 500 and 1000 rupees due guidance was issued on such notes in possession. For NRI’s allowance was made whereby travellers to India can carry notes of other NRI with authority letter to deposit in their account. I am aware that many NRI’s have used this facility.
However I was disappointed with report in Asian Voice, which stated Rs 2500 Crores over 5 years of NRI’s are held in banned notes. This figure was derived by simple method of calculation of travellers over 5 years each carrying Rs25000. The limit of Rs25000 was only introduced in 2014. Of the 200000 NRI’s visiting India every year one can safely assume that 70% are repeat visitors. Moreover not everyone carries Rs25000 while leaving India. My own view is that holding will differ from £1 to £250 worth of NRI’s Indian currency in banned notes. This may show an average of perhaps £50 with much fewer travellers. So using simple statistical values over 5 years to sensationalise the amount does not justify for a quality paper like Asian Voce.
Government of India is trying to tackle issues of corruption and black money. Most NRI’s wanted action from Government of India for many years on this issues and it is worthy of current PM to show courage to deal with this.
I feel that making appeal to Narendra Modi to provide special facility for NRI’s to deposit banned currency in UK banks will just cause distraction in his fight against issues effecting progress of India. NRI’s are spread all over the world and Government of India would require more decision time to ensure any privilege given to NRI’s is not abused anywhere in the world.
Instead we should ask Mr Modi how we can assist him in this fight.
Suresh P Shah
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