A Fascinating Drive Through A Cashless Country

The night the announcement of banning higher denomination currency notes in India was made, there was a sudden frenzy. My phone was exploding. Everybody was glued to the live news of the announcement. People were worried about how they were going to survive. I was worried about how the poor were going to survive. 

My mom suggested we go have a coffee. And so we did. We drove through relatively empty streets as it was late at night to come to a relatively bustling cafe on Carter Road in Mumbai's Bandra surburb.  As we sat down to order, we heard a worried voice talking in an agitated voice over the phone, "Buy shares. I don't know. Put it in the Swiss account." We couldn't decipher anymore as he moved away, but one thing was clear. People were figuring out ways to clear their hoarded cash.

ATMs were jampacked with people trying to withdraw an amount of 400 so as to get notes of 100.

The next day, every petrol station had a queue of about 250m outside the entrance, for people weren't only getting petrol filled in advance, they were looking for change at one of the more convenient places where the old currency was being accepted. 

Trade was slow all over as people barely had cash to spare. There were some stores which were accepting old currency and understandably, their sales had skyrocketed. There were other small-time vendors, who were accepting the notes slyly and cautiously. Internet servers were slow since most sakes were happening through debit and credit cards. However, the streets remained empty and businesses opened slow. Many businesses, such as petrol pumps, unwittingly became evil opportunists since they ran out of lower denomination notes and had to ask customers to get refills costing multiples of 500/- since they had no change. For consumers who needed much less fuel, or were in fact getting refills jus to get some change money, this came as a shock. However, since lower denomination notes exist in much less proportion than higher denomination ones, this problem was a foreseeable one.

I have read articles of hunger-ridden people and cancelled weddings and those are the ones that truly shake me. I have also read of people misusing railway reservation exception and it infuriates me. The priority for now should be to get money to those on the streets. I feel incredibly lucky that I could manage with a bit of plastic money and the fact that a street vendor  agreed to sell me a pair of shoes in exchange for a 500 rupee note.