Business
In the almost-two-month period that the NDA government's demonetization was in effect — November 8, 2016-December 30, 2016 — it was Delhi that outdid all other important business centres in so far as cash deposits are concenred.
Updated : Jun 08, 2017, 07:47 AM IST
In the almost-two-month period that the NDA government's demonetization was in effect — November 8, 2016-December 30, 2016 — it was Delhi that outdid all other important business centres in so far as cash deposits are concenred.
According to data prepared by the Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance, the national capital registered the maximum number of cash deposits of old currency among all the major metro cities with Rs 56,665 crore while Mumbai stood a distant second with Rs 35,272 crore.
The DNA is in possession of the government figures for the period.
Commenting on the demonetization deposits of the two cities, a senior tax officer told DNA, "We did not expect such a large amount of demonetization deposits from Delhi and that there would be such a large gap between Delhi and Mumbai. We thought that we would see larger deposits from Mumbai."
DNA has accessed this data through exclusive documents from the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU) a specialised agency that works under the finance ministry to monitor suspicious bank transactions. According to the FIU data, while Delhi and Mumbai stood at first and second place, Bengaluru ranked third at Rs 24,835 crore. Tax officials stated that this figure was lower than expected.
On the positive side, officials said that they received a larger than expected cash deposits from smaller cities, especially from Surat and Lucknow. Revenue department data showed that Surat deposited Rs 12,593 crore during the 50-day period.
Lucknow deposited Rs 8,195 crore cash deposits in the same time.
In terms of states, tax officials stated cities across Uttar Pradesh had especially responded to the demonetization drive. "It's not just Lucknow, large demonetization deposits have been seen in cities across Uttar Pradesh. We specially found large deposits from Ghaziabad, Noida, Varanasi and Kanpur," said the tax officer.
Data from the Revenue department showed that totally Rs 10 lakh crore was deposited in 98 lakh accounts during this 50 day period. This shows that on average Rs 10 lakh had been deposited in one account during this period.
Tax officials from the Revenue department told DNA that they had only mined data on individuals and companies which had deposited over Rs 2 lakhs over the 50 day period. They said that this had been specifically done to track potential offenders and those who may be using the benami route to hide their black money.