Rs 500, Rs 1,000 note ban: Black money hoarders in Indore use railways help to bypass demonetisation

While the NDA government is patting its back on the “demonetisation” move to curb black money and corruption, its “masterstroke” seems to have inspired new forms of corruption in the country. And it’s not jewellery shop owners or traders who the Income Tax department was tracking in New Delhi and Mumbai all through Thursday evening, but according to reports, black money hoarders may be making use of railways ticket reservation services to convert black money it into white money. According to a report published in Pradesh18, Indian Railway has put the Vijaynagar ticket booking counter in Indore under surveillance for booking tickets worth Rs 5.25 lakh on Wednesday. [caption id=“attachment_2642872” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Firstpost[/caption] The booking counter was used to book First Class AC tickets from Delhi to Trivandrum and Delhi to Guwahati worth Rs 5.25 lakh which alerted the railway officials, the Hindi news website reported. The railway officials believe that the said tickets will be cancelled at a later stage, it said. For the time being, the confirmation of the tickets booked at the reservation counter has been blocked and the incident has been referred to the railway ministry for further probe, Pradesh18 added. After announcing the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said on Tuesday that railway ticket reservation counters will continue to accept old notes of the said denominations to prevent any discomfort to travellers. The sudden move to demonetise the notes was announced to curb black money, corruption and remove fake currency notes circulating in the country. According to the report, the ticket counter had booked 116 tickets between 8 am to 2 pm. The railway, however, has not revealed the names of the people who booked the tickets at the counter, it said.