Demonetization was a disaster in many ways. The government was not at all prepared for the change and kept playing it by ear everyday, changing the policies on

Demonetization was a disaster in many ways. The government was not at all prepared for the change and kept playing it by ear everyday, changing the policies on cash withdrawals. Those who had a lot of cash used the boon of the government — Jan Dhan accounts of the poor — to deposit their cash in smaller sums and got it out later. Talk about this move's ill effects and you'll find the other side changing the topic from black money to digital transactions to tax base and so on. None of those claims have been validated. Cash use is back to how it was before. Digital transactions saw a temporary increase, but have gone out of favor among those who didn't really use them often before. Tax increases have other reasons to credit. What's even worse is that the government made it easier to hoard large amounts of cash by invalidating the Rs.1000 note and by introducing a Rs.2000 note. The main use of the Rs.2000 note could be to hoard cash since it's not something that's useful on a day-to-day basis for most people (can't easily get the change when the spend is much smaller). Tax evasion is primarily done through real estate, gold, etc. Cash bills form a minuscule percentage. The government could've focused on bigger things than attempt to flush badly run banks with cash by this move. Hopefully this or any future government won't dare to try this kind of a gimmick again.