RBI Governor meets Mamata amid protest over note ban

RBI Governor Urjit Patel today met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee under the shadow of continuing protest by her ruling Trinamool Congress against demonetisation.

Patel told reporters after the hour-long meeting in the chief minister's chamber in the state secretariat that the "meeting was good".

State Finance Minister Amit Mitra, finance secretary and home secretary were also present during the talks.

Banerjee, who is at the forefront of the anti-demonetisation protest, said that in the meeting she had expressed concern over people's hardship and "political discrimination amongst states".

Earlier, Patel attended a meeting of the RBI central board at the bank's regional office here where the TMC and CPI-M activists staged demonstration.

Asked about the meeting, Banerjee told reporters, "I am satisfied with the meeting as I availed the opportunity to express views of the common people who are facing immense hardships".

"The Prime Minister, Parliament, nothing is available. No one is responding. He (Patel) is a direct man who is directly involved in all these... This is my satisfaction that at least I could express the views and explain the situation," she said.

"The RBI is a big institution. We respect it. It should not be politically misused," Banerjee said adding that though the governor did not answer anything, he had heard her.

"There is nothing that could be answered. He was here for an hour and listened to me. And whatever I have said was the problem of the common people. I spoke on the basis of documentation," she added.

Banerjee also asked Patel to give information on the distribution of currencies to different states on RBI's website "to maintain transparency".

On being asked if during the meeting Patel agreed that the implementation was wrong, the TMC chief said, "look, I don't think that as a government officer he (Patel) can say that but I think silence is sometimes golden".

Banerjee also said that the meeting with Patel was a "routine one" and that the appointment for it had been sought "before demonetisation was announced" by the Centre.

The chief minister also handed over a letter to Patel in which she said, "as the Governor of RBI, an autonomous institution with a great history, which issues currencies to the nation, we expect you to stand up against the demonetisation onslaught against the common people of the nation at this moment of crisis, rather than falling silent and remaining opaque".

"We would also like to know from you the nature of allocation of new currency to each of the states in a spirit of transparency and accountability, since there are serious concerns of political discrimination amongst states," the letter said.

She said the whole country is going through "unprecedented misery and suffering" due to the "cruel misadventure" of demonetisation which has not been seen in any modern democracy.

"You are perhaps aware that already five crore workers across the country and across the sectors are facing unemployment and hunger. Unorganised sector of the country which provides 2/3rd jobs in the country has literally collapsed," the letter read.

"The small and medium enterprises are shutting down shops in lakhs. The massive trading sector of the economy has been brought down to its knees due to cash crunch, unable to conduct its business," it added.

"The farmers of our nation are going through a trauma never seen before and that too not due to natural calamity but due to a man-made disaster of massive demonetisation. Even the middle and large industries have dropped their production by at least 50 per cent."

Agriculture, food sector, vegetable sector, small traders to shopkeepers, small vendors to 100 day MNREGA workers, small scale to big industry, unorganised to I-T sector, it is everywhere, the common people across the board are deeply suffering. All development work has come to a standstill due to cash crunch. You also know that plastic card is not fool-proof and 92 per cent of the villages in the country have no banks," she said.

Banerjee said that every major economist including Nobel laureates have come out strongly against demonetisation, cutting across theoretical leanings.

"You are aware that the economy is getting derailed and growth rates of GDP are being revised downwards every other day," she wrote in the letter.