Standing in line—for water, milk, to pay the electricity bill—is a common practice in India. However, standing in line for over four hours only to discover that the bank is out of money is a new low for the great subcontinent. These lines were expected, but only a charmed circle of delegates anticipated demonetisation. No one anticipated the mayhem it would cause when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his speech on November 8 that `500 and `1,000 notes are no longer legal tender!
Zealous speeches about stamping out corruption and black money do little to put balm on the irate and desperate people who have found it impossible to change `500 and `1,000 notes for valid cash. The answer is simple: It is because the banks were not prepared with new `500 and `2,000 notes. And giving a `2,000 note to a labourer hardly solves the problem since there is no change available as everyone is clinging to their soiled yet precious `100 notes. Even worse is that the new notes are a gaudy pink and people have apparently started counterfeiting them as well.
Although the scheme may have been well-meaning, only few from the charmed circle knew it was going to happen. Modi did not inform even his Cabinet members. Most people were not prepared, including banks. RBI’s regional manager has reported that the central bank has no data about how many new notes have been printed. The market totally collapsed on November 9, the day after demonetisation was announced.
Over 33 deaths have been reported since demonetisation. The most heart-rending was a two-year-old child dying in Sambalpur, Odisha, when an autorickshaw driver refused to take the family to hospital as they did not have lower denomination notes to pay the fare. A similar incident happened in Jaipur where a father lost his first-born son because the ambulance refused to take old notes—this even after the announcement that hospitals and other health facilities would accept them. There have been several suicides, deaths due to exhaustion of standing in queue and shock. A woman disrobed in public out of sheer frustration of standing in a queue at the bank.
Instead of making it into a political battle as witnessed during the Winter Session of Parliament, the government needs to extend the time to return their old notes. One month is not enough; in fact, banks are predicting that it would take at least four to six months to do the entire transaction of replacing the old currency with the new.
The government should also consider offering more money to the needy, better facilities for people so they do not have to stand out in the heat and get dehydrated. The old and the physically-challeneged need to be given special facilities in banks, and perhaps the fitter in the families should be standing in line. Bank staff need to be increased, given that they are hardly able to cater to the crowds who often become frustrated and aggressive in sheer desperation.
Now that 86 per cent of the country’s currency has been demonetised, everyone is in a state of chaos. The move was not thought through and the logistics are impossible. While many are hoping that the Modi government will announce a rollback of the policy or give people more time to exchange old notes, there seems to be a stoic and rather stubborn attitude to stick to one’s guns. Something must be done to stop the deaths and stem the panic.
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