'Adopt less-cash economy approach first to fight black money'

The government needs to follow the "less cash economy" approach and not push for a "cash less economy", said traders' body CAIT on the suggestion made by Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money to ban cash transactions of above Rs 3 lakh.

The association has urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to first focus on less-cash economy in its drive to curb black money.

"Curbing black money is certainly an important issue and we support all move and action of the Government in this regard but beginning the move, the policies should be framed to have a less cash society first and later on, the same can be moved to cashless society," CAIT said.

Confederation of All India Traders added that it is already working on this agenda and is presently conducting a 40 days "less cash awareness campaign" across the Country and as a first step.

CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said: "Generation of black money should be plugged in the first instance and therefore there is a need to identify the sources of black money generation. Any ban on cash consumption without restricting its sources of generation will prove to be much counter productive.