Apropos Parthasarathi Shome: Demonetisation: An (un)necessary evil? (November 16), there is no doubt that in its zeal to keep the scheme of demonetisation of high value currency notes the government failed to visualise the operational nighmare it would create immediately for lower middle income groups and those who live on day-to-day earnings or have little by of savings at home. It also ignored our herd mentalty which we show at the entrance to the movie screen as a crowd despite having reserved seats. The need for recalibration of ATMs could have been avoided if the new notes were of the same dimensions as the old. Measures like PoS (point-of-sale) cassettes at the shops were also not thought of.
Thus a path-breaking measure has caused anguish among its admirers and anger among the opposition. Having ridden the tiger the government has to accelerate the next steps quickly to punish the guilty and prevent the creation of fresh black money. Linked measures like plugging benami deals and alternative means of converting black money such as gold should follow quickly. If people do not see tangible results, their agony will turn into anger.
Y G Chouksey, Pune
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