Govt may soon raise withdrawal limit for foreign missions

The Centre may soon raise the cash withdrawal limit for foreign diplomatic missions, as it moved to ease their inconveniences following demonetisation of high-value currency notes.

Days after Moscow warned of tit-for-tat restrictions on cash withdrawals by diplomats of India in Russia, New Delhi on Thursday moved to address the concerns of the foreign diplomatic and consular missions in India over the cash crunch in the wake of demonetisation.

The Ministry of External Affairs will ask the Ministry of Finance to issue directives to banks to allow officials of foreign missions “to withdraw money on a priority basis” showing their identity cards, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar assured Hans Dannenberg Castellanos, Dominican Republic’s envoy to India, during a meeting on Thursday. Castellanos is the Dean of Diplomatic Corps and represents 157 foreign missions in New Delhi.

The MEA has also been prodding the Ministry of Finance to ask the Reserve Bank of India to raise the weekly cash withdrawal limit for the foreign diplomatic missions from Rs 50,000.  The cash withdrawal limit was imposed after the government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. An inter-ministerial task force constituted by the government to look into the inconveniences experienced by the foreign missions, however, recommended to raise it for them.