PANAJI: Despite the assurance given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that after 50 days of demonetisation of the high-value currency notes, things will start falling in place, business in the state’s capital city of Panaji continues to suffer.
The Centre had suddenly announced demonetisation of the currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 on November 8.
This reporter met over 50 vendors in the city municipal market and the general opinion was that trade continues to take a beating owing to demonetisation.
“We could not even feel it was a New Year occasion. We lost around 75 per cent of our business in the festive season,” said a shop owner trading in party items. “For average business people like us, festivals like Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, Eid, Christmas and New Year are the only times to earn money to make up for the lean period, usually in monsoon,” he said. The shop owner felt that introduction of the card swipe machines for small scale business concerns were not feasible at all. “They are meant for big shopping malls, shopping complexes and big businessmen dealing in crores,” he said.
Terming demonetisation as a political gimmick, a flower vendor in the city market said that Modi is a true politician, who promised to ease the tension within 50 days “but his government is troubling 125 crore citizens to teach a lesson to a few tax evaders.” “No doubt, it was a good move to bring out money from the tax evaders but of late, he has realised that not even five lakh people are paying taxes honestly,” said the flower vendor and added that he had to face a tough time soon after demonetisation was announced. He, however, said that dealing with corporate houses was not much of a problem for him, as they usually paid him by way of cheque.
Though the Prime Minister’s idea to generate money from hoarders of black money or tax evaders was great, some bankers, however, spoiled the show by indulging in corrupt practices and irregular transactions involving new currency, said a vegetable vendor. He said that the Prime Minister, however, was helpless in initiating any action against them.
Fish vendors claimed that the market health has been deteriorating by the day since November 9. “People are now scared to spend lavishly on fish. Earlier, people bought fish worth Rs 200, Rs 300 or even more, but now they are satisfied with fish worth only Rs 100. It appears that the situation will not improve in the near future,” said many depressed fish vendors.
Manager of Royal Foods, which deals in chicken products, said that business was limping back to normalcy. He, however, said that it will take another three months to recover fully from the shock of demonetisation. He said, “There is no crowd in the shop as we used to experience earlier. If this is the fate of business in the beginning of 2017, on January 1 and January 2 when people get their salaries, then you can imagine and draw a conclusion,” he said.