Talk on Demonetisation for senior students

On 27th December 2016, students of classes 10th, 11th and 12th had an interaction with Ms. Anima Barnwal, Joint Commissioner, Income Tax, Ministry of Finance.

Ms. Barnwal first gave the students a general introduction on demonetisation, outlining stating the reasons for it and its effect. She encouraged an interactive session, asking students to name the various problems faced by people around them these days with regard to the matter.

Demonetisation involves introducing new currency and de recognising some currencies in circulation as legal tenders. The demonetisation introduced on 8th November, 2016 had six major stakeholders, namely, the RBI, Ministry of Finance, the banks, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, people in general and the police.

During the interaction, students raised questions about the level of security of online transactions, the crashing of the stock market, the limitations on corporate banks and the sudden upsurge in successful raids conducted by the income tax department. Ms. Barnwal detailed the procedures involved in narrowing down suspects for conducting raids, highlighting the important role played by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), citizens and the police. She also elaborated on the new Benami Act and its relevance in todays scenario.

A progressive economy, in the words of Ms. Barnwal, is one with more direct taxes and less indirect taxes. The speaker preferred to avoid answering certain controversial questions due to her position, nonetheless, the talk was very enlightening. We hope we will continue to have opportunities for more such interesting discussions in the future.

Saruby Sharma (XIB) and Rhythm Narang (XIA).