Dear Sir,

We appreciate your kind efforts to combat black money in our country.  This is indeed a bold move to demonetize high value currency notes to curb black money and corruption; it clearly signals your resolve to take on high and mighty ignoring political minefield.

There is slow but steady realization among people, especially the poor and the middle class, that the move is for cleaning the mess of black money and corruption which seriously affected the nation.

Queues outside banks and money dispensing ATM machines are getting shorter and frenzied reactions of people are giving way to reasoned conversations about the long term benefits of the measure.

While, the demonetisation is likely to bring cleaner economy going forward, our economists are speculating that it could lead to a colossal loss to country’s economy in the coming year. We at Policy and Democracy believe that there are a lot of things you can implement to ease the effects of demonetisation.

Restore liquidity in the market

Undoubtedly, the life of a common man has affected in a big way, the reason is shortage of enough currency in the market. So we need to restore the liquidity in the Indian market by printing enough cash for all of us. So, don’t just depend on the available resources we have for printing new currency. We must outsource our resources to print currency faster to stabilize the lives of our citizens.

Make Tax Paying a soothing not Harassing experience

Many of us are threatened by tax officials who misused their service and harass people. We must acknowledge the fact that most of non-taxpaying individuals neither understand tax structure nor know the process. Hence, when they are harassed by tax official they get discouraged and convince others to run away. We need to educate people about their rights and need of their contribution for paying taxes. People need guidance, and official who harass some lesson.

Use black money to mitigate jobs lost due to demonetisation

According to an estimate over Rs 3 lakh crore of black money will not be exchanged. So we request you to offer a significant fiscal stimulus to use the money, which can be used to mitigate jobs lost due to demonetisation.

Check black money in real estate

It is an open truth that the real estate sector is deeply mired in corruption and black money. From buying stamp duty to getting clearances, every step in the real estate business is damped with the exchange of black money. So, we need to check the real estate business to combat further growth of black money.

Roll back custom duty on Gold

Earlier in 1991, gold smuggling fell significantly after import restrictions were lifted. Thereafter a decent clean gold business flourished in the country. While, there was a setback in 2013 when customs duty on gold was reintroduced as Cash payments became common again for cheaper gold. So, its time when we should roll back custom duty on Gold again.

Make election donations legitimate

We should follow what the US and European countries practice by reforming curbs on legitimate election donations to political candidates.

Reform bureaucracy

Black money is generated because of administrative discretion. A good place to begin reform is to implement Justice Srikrishna’s draft Indian Financial Code.