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Demonetisation was not well thought-out, useful exercise: Raghuram Rajan
New York, April 12 (IANS) Demonetisation was not a well-planned or well thought-out useful exercise said Raghuram Rajan, ex-Governor of Reserve Bank of India, adding that the government was cautioned about it when the idea was mooted.
“Demonetisation I think was not a well-planned, well thought-out useful exercise. And I told the government that when the idea was first mooted. It seemed to me that people would find their way around,” Rajan said at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge on Wednesday.
The Indian government, in November 2016 demonetised high value Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with the aimed to curb black money in the system.
“At the time of demonetisation, it was 87.5 per cent of the currency value. Any macro economist would say that when you are demonetising 87.5 per cent of the currency, better make sure that you print 87.5 per cent or pretty-much close to that. India went into it without having done that,” Rajan said.
“So it had a negative economic impact. But also the idea was that somehow people who had money stored in the basements, without having paid taxes on it, would sort of overnight see religion, come to the government and say sorry we were hiding these stuff, let me pay taxes on it. That was to some extent naïve of you. Anybody who knows India, knows that very quickly we find ways around the system,” he added.
Rajan said essentially the money that was demonetised came back to the system, “but it did not have the direct effect that was sought that a lot of people will pay taxes.”
“There may be some longer term impact that people think that if this sort of thing happens that the government is serious of collecting taxes, there may be greater tax payments, but we still have to see strong evidence that is true,” the ex-governor said.
“So the negative economic impact that people not having currency, not being able able to pay, economic activity plummeting, especially in the informal sector, that happened. A lot of people probably lost their jobs, we do not count that well because it is the informal sector.”
He, however, said: “The positive impacts are out there in the future, we do not know whether they will be important and to my mind, it was not a policy that was useful at that time.”
Asked whether the RBI was consulted before the government announced demonetisation, Rajan said: “We were consulted and we did not think it was a good idea on demonetisation. The cost of demonetisation vary between 1.5-2 per cent of GDP.
“I do not think there is huge amount of dispute about it. I don’t think even the government necessarily challenges that and it would be a really die hard government advocate who would say that growth benefits of demonetisation were immediate.”
Talking about the non-performing assets and multi-crore Punjab National Bank scandal, Rajan said the worry is some of the banks still follow antiquated system.
“Worry is systems are not adequate to prevent rogue dealers, rogue employees colluding and making off with stuff.”
Regarding the newly introduced indirect tax regime of Goods and Services Tax (GST), he said: “GST implementation, we will figure it out eventually. It would be nice if we can implement it much better than we do. But it is not an unfixable problem, we can work on it. I won’t give up hope on that at this point of time.”
–IANS
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International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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