New Delhi:Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his ministerial colleagues to give details of tours, if any, undertaken by them during the last three months, an exercise aimed at ascertaining whether they promoted demonetisation and other initiatives, sources said. The Prime Minister is learnt to have given the directive at a recent Cabinet meeting, the sources said.
They have been asked to submit the details by Monday. Minister for Rural Development Narendra Singh Tomar has been directed to coordinate with the Ministries for this task, the sources added.
“All the ministers have been asked to submit details of their outstation tour programmes of the last three months. If not on tour, they should mention if they were in Delhi and attended office.
“The idea is to know if the Ministers visited places beyond their respective constituencies to promote initiatives of government, particularly demonetisation. The exercise is also aimed at knowing if they were balancing office work and field duties,” a source said.
Incidentally, opposition leader from the Congress, P Chidambaram also had some information to share on demonetisation issue. The former Finance Minister in the UPA government termed the notes ban decision as the “biggest scam of 2016”. He also said the country is likely to grow by 6-6.5 per cent in 2016-17, much lower than what have been predicted by the CSO and RBI, due to the impact of notes ban.
Without naming PM Modi, he said, “So, somebody hit an idea in his head, he decided to go on television and announce demonetisation, and the hit is Rs. 1.5 lakh crore (on GDP).”
PTI