Note ban: State ministers lash out at Centre

The state government ministers criticised the Centre’s Demonetisation drive while inaugurating Industrial India Trade Fair (IITF) organised by Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BNCCI) on Friday.

State Urban Development minister Firhad Hakim, Information Technology and Electronics department minister Bratya Basu and Power minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay strongly criticised the Central government’s hasty and arbitrary decision on demonetisation.

They said it is really hard time for the middle, small and micro industries. The big industries are also not safe. The situation is going worse day by day.

“The Central government is talking about plastic money. The Prime Minister and other ministers are advising common people to use e-wallets and Credit cards. The banks are making profit after every transaction,” said Hakim.

“The common people, middle and lower middle class are helpless. They do not have cash. Their money is stuck in bank,” the urban development minister said.

“The cash-rationing has created huge trouble for the middle and lower middle-class people. But the banks are flooded with cash and hoping to get more cash in near future,” Hakim said, adding, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is criticising the demonetisation and will continue in future.

State Information Technology and Electronics minister Bratya Basu said that the Centre cannot see the trouble of poor countrymen. “The poor countrymen are now losing their jobs. The factories are shutting their shops. The owners of the factories cannot pay salary to their labourers. In this situation, we have to fight against demonetisation. The poor people have to fight against demonetisation,” Basu said.

“The common people have lost their confidence after demonetisation. They simply do not know how 

to run the family. Their own, hard earned money is stuck in the bank,” said Power minister Sobhandeb Chatterjee.

“The elderly people are dying in the queue in front of the bank. Many of them do not even know whether they will get money or not,” Chatterjee added.

However, the ministers also invited investments for the Bengal. “Bengal will be one of the three states across the nation, in information technology sector by 2020. We are ready with our ICT policy. We have also provided help to start-up companies,” the Information Technology and Electronics said.

“We’ve 34 per cent growth in power consumer. This is an important indicator to prove that this state is ready for getting new investments,” the power minister said.