The Modi government, which promised, among other things, to root out black money, demonetised nearly 86 per cent of cash overnight. This move was taken after other measures (including the Income Declaration Scheme) were not successful. Following demonetisation, there was much criticism about its impact on economic growth, employment, prices, taxes, unaccounted incomes, vulnerable sections, informal economy etc. The scale of impact of such a massive policy is clearly an empirical issue. In the absence of that, these views were at the most anecdotal and based on conjectures; some were based on quick, but thin, surveys.
Amidst such ambiguity, this book tries to discuss the anatomy of demonetisation and black money. C. Rammanohar Reddy (CRR), until recently editor of The Economic & Political Weekly, takes readers into every dimension of demonetisation. Given his experience in academics and journalism, he covers a vast canvas, under the veiled supervision of former RBI governor Y.V. Reddy, who has written an equally thought-provoking foreword,...
