Government, industry back times’ ‘remonetisation’ campaign

MUMBAI: Union ministers and industry captains have lauded Times Network’s campaign urging Indians to move on from demonetisation and make efforts to bring the country’s economy back on track.

Remonetise India — A Citizen’s Pledge, the campaign kicked off on Saturday and beamed across the channels of the Times Group’s broadcast arm, connected viewers to opinion and policy makers and educated them on how to move to a digital and a less-cash economy.

Insisting that the current government is a transformative one, minister for IT and Law & Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad said penetration of mobile phones in rural India was of critical importance. “Digital India, Make in India, Skill India and Startup India are designed to make India an empowered society,” he said. While taking questions from viewers, commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman said demonetisation hasn’t had any significant impact on jobs.

“Impact on jobs, if any, was only in the first 10 days of demonetisation… normalcy is getting restored.” She said the government was not talking of a completely cashless economy, but one where less cash is used. Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys, said the country agrees with the PM that corruption needs to be reduced.

However, he added: “We still have a long journey to make India digital as all the infrastructure needs to be built up for the country to go totally digital.” Deepak Parekh, chairman of HDFC said, demonetisation has been a game changer and seemed part of a bigger plan of the government.

“The economy has been resilient to the change as anticipated earlier … there is a deep conviction that India will emerge as a much stronger force after demonetisation,” he said. The biggest advantage for homebuyers will be lower interest rates, transparency and no large cash payments, he added.

Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog; Sunil Munjal, joint MD of Hero MotoCorp; Kunal Bahl, CEO of Snapdeal; Abhiraj Bhal, co-founder of Urban Clap and author Chetan Bhagat also participated in the event.