Small trade, farm sector unfazed

Kajal Ghosh is a roadside vegetable vendor at Chowkidighi in Dibrugarh. On an average day, his take-home is barely ₹100-150 a day.

The use of digital and plastic money, though rising rapidly, is yet to make an impact on everyday life in this upper Assam town. A month after demonetisation of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, new currency is available in plenty but mostly in ₹2,000 notes.

Going by popular belief, Ghosh should have been hard hit. But ask him about business, and he says “ Thik ache ” (It’s okay).

Though Ghosh is not happy with the performance of the six-month-old Sarbananda Sonowal government, he has no grievances against demonetisation. “Good work is always criticised,” is his answer to critics.

His is not a stray case. As this correspondent criss-crossed Assam, small retailers and farmers, cutting across religious and political lines, didn’t attach much significance to the currency crisis.

Be it a Rajesh Kalwa, selling tea at Jeypore near Arunachal border nearly 80 km from Dibrugarh town, or Akramul Islam, running a stationery shop at Bedbari-Ghilabari in Sivasagar, the story is the same. “The big traders may be affected, not we,” Islam said.

Hamidur Rahman (25) of Pessimari in Darang district has no love for the BJP government in the State. “They don’t like Muslims,” he says. Congress has won from this Assembly constituency and AIDUF, an Islamic front, has a strong base in this area.

Unlike the majority areas of Assam where farming is a single-season affair, Darang is multi-crop.

“The economy here is fully dependent on farming,” Rahman says, before adding that he had a bumper paddy crop, realisation is good and he sowed potato and vegetables for the winter season. “There is no crisis,” he confirms.

Lalji Singh, near Sonabheel tea estate in Sonitpur, has just been through with the single paddy crop in his 14 bigha land. His realisation is lower than Rahman’s. But he doesn’t blame any currency crisis and is happy with the crop.

Says Surajali, a roadside poultry seller in Kharapetia in Darang: “Old notes are still in circulation here,” he said, and steered the conversation to more serious issues like BPL card and citizenship issues.

“There is some impact but not as much as you might have watched on TV,” said car driver Pranjal Shaikia of Tezpur. Shaikia is a Congress sympathiser. He worked in a Bengaluru firm in the past.

But it doesn’t mean that the currency crisis hasn’t hit anyone. Tyre repairers on the highway say business in November has dropped as cargo movement is hit.

Tea garden workers who get barely ₹1,200-1,300 a fortnight are facing trouble due to paucity of smaller denomination notes.

Arati Oraon (50) of Bokel tea estate near Dibrugarh, had to share the wages of the previous fortnight with other co-workers as the garden paid them as a group in ₹2,000 notes.

But this is hardly the whole picture. Most tea gardens used their social equity to get change for wage payment from local traders.

Some like Dhruba Baruah of Borpatra tea estate of Goodricke in Charaideo district, issued credit notes, tradeable in local shops, to employees. The shop-owners later exchanged these notes with high-denomination currency from the garden management.

Meanwhile, demonetisation has evoked keen interest in cashless transaction modes across the North-East. In Guwahati, from car rentals to cigarette shops, Paytm has gained wide acceptance. This propensity is increasing in other towns and cities.

“The demand for point-of-sale (PoS) machines is increasing exponentially,” confirms PVSLN Murthy, Chief General Manager of SBI in Guwahati.

SBI has 13,000 such machines in the region. They will start installing 20,000 more machines in the region beginning this week. District collectors are placing orders for 200-300 machines each. Also, railway stations and petrol pumps are going for this mode.

SBI tried pushing card transactions in the past too but witnessed limited success. Only 65 per cent of IOC petrol pumps take cards. The rest like Udairam Rwatmal, an IOC outlet near Dibrugarh, still transact in cash.

“The scene has now changed drastically,” Murthy says.

He is not far from the truth. Sitting in his small tea shop at the foothills of the Patkai mountain range — a traditional hideout of Assamese and Naga insurgents — Kalwa is exploring if Paytm would do any good to his business.

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