RBI to inject 'significant currency' in coming days: Arun Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will be injecting a significant amount of currency in the coming days to remonetize the system, an alert from PTI said. Jaitley was responding to comments on demonetization made by former FM P Chidambaram earlier today. 

While talking about the ruling government's move to remove high-denomination notes from the system, Chidambaram said that it was the biggest scam of the year where only the poor were suffering, and should be investigated. 

Jaitley said, "Despite transient problems, we are rapidly remonetising; RBI to inject significant amount of currency in coming days," PTI reported. 

Calling out the Congress party's regime, Jaitley said that "Corruption, scams peaked during UPA. Given its scandalous record, it was not surprising that Congress was uncomfortable with NDA's campaign," according to PTI. 

"Congress did not take a single step against corruption or black money in 10 years," he added. 

With remonetization, "our strategy is to move to a low cash economy," he said. "In 2004-14, high denomination currency increased to 80% from 36% of total currency," Jaitley said. 

The move that has been touted as a strategy by the government to eradicate black money from the system and stem terror funding, also a move to shift the country to cashless payments, removed Rs 14 lakh crore or 86% of the currency (in value terms) from the system overnight. So far about Rs 4.5 lakh crore in legal tender has been issued by the central bank.