PM thanks people for supporting demonetisation

New Delhi, Nov 8 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday thanked the people of the country for supporting his government's measures to eradicate black money, on the first anniversary of demonetisation.

In a series of tweets which included slides and videos, the Prime Minister called demonetisation "a historic and multi dimensional success", and a "decisive blow" to terrorism and Maoism.

A video posted by the Prime Minister said the nation was in a dire state due to corruption and black money when he became the Prime Minister, and called demonetisation a step which was never taken before or even thought of in independent India.

"In the history of any country there are moments where every person feels they want to be a part of that moment. Every common citizen can participate in this war against corruption, black money and counterfeit currency," Prime Minister Modi is seen saying in the video, which also shows people in a line, adding that the people "overlooked" small troubles in the fight against black money.

Calling it a "decisive blow to terrorism and Naxalism", the slide posted by the Prime Minister said stone pelting incidents in Kashmir valley had come down by 75 per cent, incidents of Left Wing Extremism have been down by 20 per cent, and 7.62 lakh counterfeit notes were detected.

"I bow to the people of India for steadfastly supporting the several measures taken by the Government to eradicate corruption and black money," the Prime Minister said in a tweet.

"125 crore Indians fought a decisive battle and won," he said.

As per the data posted by Prime Minister Modi, 0.00011 per cent of India's population deposited 33 per cent of the total cash, and in 17.73 cases cash transaction did not match the tax profile.

It also said that cash deposit of Rs 3.68 lakh crore in 23.22 lakh accounts is under suspicion.

Calling it a "massive cleansing of the Indian financial system", the slide said "a maze of shell companies dealing in black money and hawala transactions" were uncovered, and called it a "surgical strike" on shell companies, with 2.24 lakh shell companies being struck off.

It said 58,000 bank accounts belonging to 35,000 companies were caught transacting Rs 17,000 crore after demonetisation.

The slide also said that it was a "big push" towards formalisation, adding that it led to direct transfer of salaries into bank accounts, 1.01 crore additional employees were enrolled in the EPFO, and 1.3 crore workers were registered with the Employees State Insurance, bringing social security and health benefits to them.

There has also been an increase of 26.6 per cent in new tax payers, from 66.53 lakh in 2015-16 to 84.21 lakh in 2016-17.

It also said the move caused "cleaner economy for the nation through less cash behavioural shift", and in August 2017, the number of digital transactions stood at 138 crore against 87 crore in August 2016.

"People have got multiple benefits from demonetisation like reduced rate of interest for loans, decrease in real estate prices, increased income of urban local bodies etc," the slide sai, counting the benefits of demonetisation.