It is close to the one month anniversary of us Indians juggling with a currency ban, which has taken over our everyday chores. Every part of it. Even as salaries make it to bank accounts – due to withdrawal restrictions, long queues, defunct ATMs – not much has changed.
For many, the beginning of a month means stocking up and perhaps the promise of a heavily-slumped sale pattern to regain a little bit momentum – small retailers, vendors, hawkers. People have got salaries now, maybe they will buy a little more from them.
Ram Prasad Jha has a roadside shop from where he sells garments in Noida’s busy, cramped Atta Market. Jha hasn’t been able to replenish his stock as much as he wanted. He buys primarily through cash. How much he earns in a month also dictates how much new stock he gets. Sales have been down. People haven’t been buying much.
Jha’s stall is surrounded by a few established, ‘proper’ shops. The scene is a little different there. As these retailers buy in bulk, they largely pay their wholesalers via cheques. The cash crunch, it seems, hasn’t dented their inventory much.
Satinder Kumar sells handbags off the pavement. He tells me with a cheeky grin that his shop is easy to spot because you will always see a bunch of women huddled around it. Come to think of it, Satinder was grinning all through. Even while talking about the meager Rs 1,000 he made over the last week.
“Sales have gone down by half”, he tells me. Like Jha, Satinder also buys according to his earnings. Low sales have also resulted in not getting fresh stocks for him.
Not far from him, right beneath the overhead Noida Sector 18 metro station is where Rahul and his mother have been setting up their stall for years now. They sell shoes – pumps, boots, stilettos – the range is magnificent.
Rahul says that December is the wedding season and sale is always good around this year. But 2016 is an exception. Reason? Should be obvious by now. People aren’t buying. Everyone is reserving their cash for absolute essentials. It may sound a grand, desirable exercise in asceticism, but it is also pushing people to lose out on livelihood.
As I was finishing my conversation with Rahul, I heard a voice, beckoning me towards another stall. Meet Vinod, whose fancy I caught, thanks to the selfie stick, and microphone I was carrying. But Vinod had strict instructions. He wished not to be filmed or recorded. Vinod sells jackets and trousers from his stall on the pavement. He believes that if he is aired saying what he wanted to say, the ‘government’ will come and shut down his shop.
We complied. Nevertheless, here’s the message he shared with us for Modi ji.
While I spoke with Vinod, or rather he spoke to me, a few neighbouring stall owners gathered around. I heard someone saying that Mr Modi hasn’t even left water to wash their bums. Peels of laughter followed. The sun was setting, I needed to move on, leaving what had by then become a serious ‘demonetisation pe charcha’.
Little did I know that the next person I would end up talking to will be another Vinod. Vinod Kumar Sahu sells soft toys and ‘novelty items’. And so, his business is badly hit. If people are rationing cash, not even buying new winter clothes, they surely won’t be buying toys for their kids. Vinod has made just Rs 500 in the last week.
Good, bad, ugly, however viewed, you cannot deny the fact that those who have been affected the worst are people who neither are part of the upwardly middle class, nor the country’s upper strata. The woes of these small time retailers is testimony to that.
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