Jaitley shares benefits of cashless economy

MNA Business Desk: Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said the current Indian government is working to make India a cashless market as it leads to corruption and hurts the poor.

“Cash leads to tax evasion, cash leads to shadow economy and cash leads to corruption,” he said while addressing a ‘talk’ on ‘Macroeconomic Initiatives of the Government of India’ at a city hotel.

Jaitley said a large part of India’s economy just thrived on cash and when it thrives on cash, the curse of cash also exists.

“One of the great challenges in Indian economy that we always faced was that it was cash-centric economy,” said the Indian Minister adding that India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world over the last three years.

He said the current Indian government took the matter as the very first challenge before them and started working to take these unbanked people into the banking network.

Jaitley said these unbanked people are from “rural areas, tribal areas, in geographically more remote areas. There were people who came from parts of central India which were impacted by left-wing extremism.”

He also said the officials started visiting every house, every family to bring unbanked people into the banking system that helped India open 300 million bank accounts in both rural and urban areas in three years.

The Indian minister said excessive cash operates against the poor and it deprives the state of revenue and overall economy.