Hyderabad: After Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, the other Telugu state has also joined the chorus of complaints against the scrapping of the big currency notes by the centre.
Even as the Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was reaching New Delhi to discuss the repercussions of the ban on Rs500 and Rs1000 notes, a top official of Andhra Pradesh finance department said demonetisation had a serious impact on the revenue of the state.
Ajay Kallam, special chief secretary, finance department said people were facing a lot of difficulties due to the shortage of smaller currency as most of the Rs70 billion (Dh3.78 billion) currency notes sent to the state was in the denomination of Rs2000.
“We are taking steps to ensure that there was no problem in disbursement of salaries to the government employees due to the cash crunch”, he said.
Though the Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu avoided any vocal criticism of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s action, he admitted normal life was crippled in the state. “I am in touch with the Reserve Bank of India over the issue and urging them to take measures to ease the currency shortage in the state”, Naidu said.
However he openly criticised the introduction of Rs2000 currency notes saying it was of no use. “On the other hand there is a possibility that it will help in hoarding of black money”, he told a public meeting in Chodavaram last evening.
Naidu said his government was introducing Rupay Card in the state on a large scale to help people in shopping.
Meanwhile, two MPs of Telangana Rashtra Samiti continued their criticism of demonetisation. B Narsaiah Goud said Telangana had already suffered a loss of Rs12 billion over the last ten days due to the cancellation of the currency notes.
The common people were suffering a lot because of the cancellation of Rs500 and Rs1000 notes, he said. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was going to New Delhi to discuss the issue, he added.
Another TRS MP B Vinod Kumar said demonetisation had created serious problems all over the country as ATMs were not working in most of the places. He advised the Prime Minister to discuss the situation with all Chief Ministers.
Chief Minister KCR has advised the centre not to call the money kept by the people with them as black money. All those having more than Rs250,000 income or having saving should not be treated as black-money hoarders, he said in a statement. Instead it should be referred to as unaccounted money. Small and medium traders, businessmen and others in the unorganised sector should be given certain exemptions, he suggested.
