A ruckus in the middle of the street, people rushing towards ATM’s and banks, simultaneous yet frantic calls being made, NO! this isn’t an explosion, it is the impact of Sri. Narendra Modi’s legitimate law which had just been imposed on the peaceful evening of 8th November. Demonitisation took the country by shock and whether for good or not is for us to decide. On a very general note, it affected the majority instead of minority. India lost 86% of it monetary base. There is no doubt that Prime Minister NaMo has pulled out a major coop and substantially fixed his reputation as strong leader, but at what cost is the question.
The point to be taken into consideration is that most of the black money is kept in the form of lands, properties or gold. What is in cash constitutes only 12% of the total amount of black money and fake currency on which taxes are not being paid.
The actual crisis is for small farmers, sellers, merchants, daily wage laborers and traders who suffer because of lack of planning, intelligence and foresight such as recalibration of ATM machines. There was a need to pile up enough 100 Rupee notes and other smaller denominations in the market before taking such a large scale impact step.
Now coming to the lives of the common people who might not be involved in this black money bargain, who probably pay their taxes right and who run their day to day life with cash. Not every market or roadside shop will have a card machine, not a every vegetable vendor has a card machine, not every person has access to bank and card. The que at the ATM was probably more than the que at an immigration office or an RTO office. It looked as though the banks were giving away free currency notes. There were people who waited in the line for 6-7 hours and when their turn came, the KIOSK read out “No cash available”. All the time and energy in vain. Even when the traffic police caught someone and the offender bribed him 500, the reply would be “Koi baat nahi sir, 100 hi dedo”.
Even today, the ATM’s do not function full fledged.
Agreed that the intension was also to go cashless but not at the cost of daily sufferings where everyone does everything on the basis of card payment availability. Before taking such big steps, big substitutes should be provided too in order to control the crisis and the economy of the country. Great move Mr. Prime Minister, but I guess we missed out on the planning