Digital currency

This is with reference to the ongoing demonetisation drive launched by the Indian government to control the flow of black money in the country. These kinds of initiatives tend to backfire and fail to make any impact. A long-term remedy for dealing with corruption is issuing the e-coin or digital currency in countries like India and Pakistan to control black money and to encourage the general public to disclose their hidden assets to the government. Making regular transactions through a digital currency helps generate a log or a documented record and creates a huge amount of real-time data for the government to analyse and make better-informed policies accordingly. Consequently, it leads to more tax collection, offering no chance to hide transactions from tax authorities. Besides eliminating the use of black money in the country, the move, if implemented in Pakistan, would also thwart funding of terrorist organisations that mostly rely on laundered or ill-gotten money.

The proposed form of currency will control the underground economy and reduce socio-economic problems like corruption, bribery, embezzlement, extortion, blackmailing, etc. As a result, this will swell banking industry’s deposits and will enable banks and financial institutions to sanction more loans at a reasonably low interest rate, thus increasing investments and creating more jobs. Resorting to digital currency is a viable option if the government is truly committed to uprooting corruption. Owing to the unbearable cost involved, it looks difficult to implement it at the start. However, the idea of using digital money as a popular currency is all achievable and it only entails a one-time cost, which is not more than the total cost spent on issuing new currency notes to the public.

Syed Farman Ghani

Ontario, Canada