If you set aside politics, the last word on the efficacy of the demonetisation drive is yet to be said. The cash ban , announced in November 2016, caught the nation unawares, created a lot of hardships in its aftermath and slowed down economic growth. Those were collateral damage of an exercise meant to stamp out black money and corruption.In politics, and even in economics, the narrative took various shades ever since. And RBI ’s annual report, released last week, showed 99.3 per cent of the banned notes actually returned to the system, which gave critics enough ammunition to call the cash ban an exercise in futility that cost dearly but earned nothing.It’s a bitter medicine forced down the throat of the nation, they say. Others call it a "carefully manipulated scam". Yet another school claims that the move put the economy back by a few years. Dalal Street analysts, who have the real pulse of the economy at any given point, have not been critical of demonetisation. Instead, they prefer to look at the cash ban’s fringe benefits, which may have a long-lasting impact on the economy.Though the initial blow of demonetisation was indeed brutal for the economy, the country has revived and the whole episode has impacted the country positively in terms of financial and growth front, says Anindya Banerjee, currency analyst, Kotak Securities.The prices paid by the public 18 months ago in the form of long queues and other inconveniences are all bearing fruit now, says he.The fruits he is referring to are these: a serious boost to financialisation of savings, big jump in income-tax compliance, a drop in counterfeit currency in circulation and faster digitisation of the cash economy.In a recent interaction with ETMarkets.com, Radhika Gupta, CEO, Edelweiss Asset Management, said rapid digitisation and demonetisation worked as a boon for the industry. “We believe that the story of financialisation of assets emerged post note ban in November 2016,” Gupta added.SBI Economic Research in a detailed analysis listed out the benefits, especially a major shift in Indians’ investment pattern –from physical assets to financial products.Thanks to Operation Clean Money, there has been a spurt in the number of income tax returns filed. Rising ITRs showed that a greater number of people have contributed to the government’s revenue.The number of returns filed as on July 31 stood at 3.43 crore against 2.24 crore during the same period of 2017-18, up 53 per cent. A simple exercise was carried out by the SBI economic research team to find out how much the government stands to benefit. A higher base is seen to contribute at least Rs 300 billion to the exchequer.One of the major objectives of demonetisation was to crack down on the expanding universe of fake currencies. The quantity of such fake notes read 7.62 lakh pieces in 2016-17. The number showed a marked decline of 31.4 per cent post demonetisation, which was down at 5.23 lakh in 2017-18.The crackdown on shell companies intensified, especially after demonetisation. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has set up a high-powered team to mark out shell firms with dubious transactions. The Suspect List, which has been drawn up by SFIO, contains a total of 80,670 names.Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sambit Patra said black money found an address due to demonetisation carried out in November 2016 and over five lakh shell companies were closed down, he said.The value of high denomination currency in overall currency composition is 80.6 per cent, lower than the pre-demonetisation phase (86.4 per cent). As the RBI ramped up supply of Rs 500 notes in FY18, their share has almost doubled to 42.9 per cent.The bottom line is things are getting tougher for those to park their money in black. Furthermore, lower denomination currencies mean more convenient day to day dealings for the general public.Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has recently said the larger purpose of demonetisation was to move India from a tax non-compliant society to a compliant one.The debate has many threads that range from the pain faced by small time traders to formalisation of economy and the tag of fastest growing major economy that India now boasts of.