Just days ahead of the Union Budget, a high-powered panel headed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday recommended imposing tax on cash transactions of at least Rs 50,000 through banks to discourage the excessive use of cash and promote digital payments. “To curb use of cash for large transactions, the ministry of finance should consider levy of banking cash transaction tax (BCTT) on transactions of Rs 50,000 and above,” the panel, constituted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November after demonetisation, said in its interim report. “We have submitted the recommendations to the Prime Minister today (Tuesday) and are fairly confident that some of these might be incorporated in the 2017-18 Union Budget,” Naidu later told reporters. The panel wants the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the finance ministry to not allow cash transactions above a threshold. However, some experts said that existing measures to curb high-value cash transactions were good e