Printing of Rs 500 Notes Hit at Salboni Press as TMC Intervenes

Note production hit after TMC coaxes Salboni printing press workers to cut working hours, reports Chandan Nandy.

Note production hit after TMC coaxes Salboni printing press workers to cut working hours. (Photo: Harsh Sahani/ The Quint)

A day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation programme is scheduled to end, workers at the Reserve Bank of India’s currency printing presses in Salboni and Mysuru have stopped working extra hours, causing the rate of printing of the new Rs 500 notes to fall sharply.

The increase in working hours to 12 from the normal nine was introduced in September when printing of the new Rs 2,000 notes began at the Salboni and Mysuru presses.

The workers’ decision to suddenly cut their working hours back to nine is said to be directly associated with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s strident stand taken against Modi’s demonetisation move.

Speaking to The Quint, Trinamool Congress MP from Kanthi in East Midnapore, Sisir Adhikari, confirmed that the 700-odd workers (apart from about 300 officer-grade employees) have refused to work the extra three hours at the Salboni press, which is operated by the Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Pvt Ltd (BRBNMPL), a direct subsidiary of the RBI. The workers at the Salboni press, Adhikari said, are affiliated with the Indian National Trinamool Trade Union Congress (INTTUC).

Also Read: Note Ban: High Expectations, Botched Calculations and Ensuing Pain

40% Less Production

The workers’ decision will adversely affect production of the Rs 500 notes, which, RBI sources said, will go down by as much as 40 percent. The move will undoubtedly the Modi government’s remonetisation programme, which has, by all accounts, failed to meet the 30 December target.

Speaking to The Quint over the phone, Subrata Chatterjee, President of the Salboni BRBNMPL Employees’ Union, which is not affiliated with any political party, said that the new working hours will bring the production of the Rs 500 notes down from 20 million a day (in three shifts) to 12 million pieces in two shifts and “three lines of machines”. This is a 40 percent hit as far as the production of Rs 500 notes is concerned.

According to Chatterjee, the “dispatch of notes” (of all denominations) from Salboni to the RBI’s currency chests is 36 million per day. Chatterjee agreed that the “tough 12-hour schedule in three shifts was taking a toll on workers’ health and social life.”

BRBNMPL Workers’ Association Secretary Nepal Singh, who is the TMC’s Salboni block president, said that the impact of the workers’ decision will be felt in the days to come.

“The TMC is certainly behind the workers’ decision and it is aimed at spiting the Prime Minister,” an RBI source said, admitting that the “setback” will delay remonetisation and heap more suffering on the people besides potentially embarrassing Modi.

Also Read: Modi’s Clueless Aides Are the Villains, Not the New Currency Notes

TMC legislators stage a demonstration against demonetisation at the West Bengal Assembly in Kolkata on 5 December 2016. (Photo: IANS)

‘No Political Conspiracy?’

Claiming that there was “no political conspiracy” behind the move, Adhikari said over the phone that “the workers decision arises from a trying situation ever since a third shift was introduced at the Salboni press”. He said that several workers live at the Salboni plant complex along with their families and “have been reporting sick because of the unduly long hours they have been putting in at the printing press.” Adhikari added emphatically that “if working longer is affecting their health, the workers simply cannot, and they must not, put in extra hours.”

The decision taken by the Salboni workers, following prompting by the TMC, was adopted by their counterparts at BRBNMPL’s Mysuru press as well. This, RBI sources said, will hit the production rate of the new Rs 500 notes’, which are in dire short supply across most parts of the country. In fact, printing of the Rs 500 notes began at least a month after production of the Rs 2,000 notes began.

Also Read: Digital Payments Panel Wants High-Value Cash Transactions Taxed

Short Supply

Once Modi made his 8 November demonetisation announcement, printing of the Rs 500 notes took off at the Dewas and Nashik presses, managed by the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL) under the Finance Ministry. However, the extreme short supply of the Rs 500 notes and exhaustion of printing paper for the Rs 2,000 notes press forced the RBI and the government to put the Salboni and Mysuru presses to work in printing Rs 500 notes to produce an adequate number of the high-value notes to achieve its remonetisation target.

Once operations to print the Rs 500 notes at the Salboni and Mysuru presses – SPMCIL’s Dewas and Nashik presses continued to produce the notes too – were expanded, the combined production went up but still fell far short of the required numbers. Besides the Rs 500 notes, the four presses had also begun printing smaller denomination notes.

Also Read: Did USAID Influence Indian Govt’s Drive for a Cashless Economy?

Staggered Lunch Hours

While the printing situation at the Salboni and Mysuru presses now appears to be gloomy, SPMCIL authorities have introduced a “staggered lunch hour” at its Dewas press to keep pace with printing sufficient Rs 500 notes. SPMCIL sources said that cash incentives of Rs 150-200 have been offered to each worker at the Dewas and Nashik presses.

A staggered lunch hour will ensure that workers defer taking the break which, in other words, means putting in extra hours. This arrangement has not been extended to workers at the Dewas Bank Note Press’ ink factory, where production of intaglio inks has touched 1,000 tonnes.

Also Read:
Note Ban Didn’t Kill Terrorism, Mr Modi. It’s Only a Speedbreaker
Note Ban Has Stained Modi’s Reputation, Writes Shashi Tharoor