An attempted robbery that failed.

Out of a total of Rs 15.4 trillion worth of high value banknotes (Rs 1,000 and Rs 500), which were suddenly withdrawn on 8 November 2016, known as demonetization, Rs 15.3 trillion worth have been returned, the Reserve Bank of India, RBI, announced yesterday. Only Rs 107.20 billion remain outstanding. The RBI has spent a total of Rs 128.77 billion of taxpayers money to print new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500, which could have been used for more productive purposes. Poor people paid a heavy price as 1.5 million jobs were lost, especially in the unorganized sector. Demonetization was supposed to get rid of black money, decrease corruption and eliminate counterfeit currency. "Counterfeit notes detected in SBNs (specified bank notes) decreased by 59.7 and 59.6 per cent in denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, respectively," said the RBI. "Compared to the previous year, there was an increase of 35 per cent in counterfeit notes detected in the denomination of Rs 100, while there was a noticeable increase of 154.3 per cent in counterfeit notes detected in the denomination of Rs 50." Rs 2,000 notes showed a spike of 2,710% compared to last year, while the number of Rs 500 fake notes jumped by 4,871%.  "Demonetization failed in every objective that was expected from it, wrote V Padmanabhan. Total amount of cash is back to previous levels at Rs 19.37 trillion but cash to GDP ratio is down from 12.2% of GDP in 2011-12 to 8% in 2017-18. Digital transactions have increased but they were increasing even before demonetization. Tax to GDP ratio has increased from a low of 10% in 2014-15 to 11.6% in 2017-18. We are not told if this increase is because of eye-watering increase in salaries of millions of civil servants due to the 7th Pay Commission. Minimum salary of government employees maybe increased to Rs 26,000 per month which will take the lowest ranked employee above income tax threshold which is Rs 250,000 per year, or Rs 21,000 per month. Household financial savings as a percentage of gross national disposable income (GNDI) rose from 9.1% in 2016-17 to 11.1% in 2017-18, the highest in at least the last seven years," wrote M Chakravarty. "That's the good news. The bad news is that a major part of this increase was in currency." "The negative impact of demonetization was felt across all the segments of economy, especially agriculture and industry," wrote R Singhal. Reserve Bank Governor Urjit Patel had to face a lot of criticism because of the slow replacement of recalled banknotes but there is now a "growing respect" for him, wrote an editorial in the Mint. Modi scored a huge victory in UP assembly election last year because of demonetization but will the opposition make it count in general elections next year we shall see. It is a crime to try to rob the nation.