At last township on Myanmar border, they dread the new Rs 2,000 note

Demonetisation has brought down sales, Jugli said, from Rs 300-Rs 400 per day to less than Rs 100 a day. “If this continues, I will have to shut my shop,” she said.

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Nemnyam Mossang, a woman from nearby Namgwe village, goes to the thrice-a-month haat at Pangsau Pass 1,136 metres above sea-level on the border. She has been facing the same problem. “Transactions at the border market have come down. People have returned their Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, and exhausted all their smaller notes in the past one month. I am not going there next week,” said Mossang, who takes vegetables, biscuits and salt to the border haat.

Nampong, the last township on the Indian stretch of the historic 1,736-km Stilwell Road built during World War II, connects Ledo in Assam to Kunming in China through Myanmar. It does not even have a customer service point, let alone a bank. Nampong Circle has a population of 4,000, in addition to about 1,000 defence personnel and contractor labourers from outside.

“The nearest bank is at Jairampur, about 14 km away. I stood in queue for about four hours to deposit eight Rs 500 notes on November 11; it took me another four hours to withdraw six Rs 2,000 notes 10 days later,” said Mingkam Tikhak, a peon in the local education department office.

Hamai Langching, a Sarva Siksha teacher at Longman Primary School, had to buy four cans of baby food. “I also bought a bucket though we already have three at home, just to take the total close to Rs 2,000,” he said.

Asarfi Rai, originally from Hajipur, retired from the state forest department, settled here and sells vegetables. He said he gets stocks on credit; he also sells on credit.

In Jairampur, SBI branch manager N J Borthakur said he had to take out all soiled notes out of the vault for return to the RBI. “We put over Rs 10.8 lakh back into circulation, all soiled Rs 100 and Rs 50 notes,” he said, adding two employees fell ill after handling the cash.

The bank is yet to get fresh notes of lower denominations. “We are giving away only Rs 2,000 notes. We will get the first consignment of smaller notes soon,” said Borthakur. The branch has 17,500 customers.

S S Choudhury, additional deputy commissioner of Jairampur subdivision, said the government has asked SBI to open a few more branches as early as possible. SBI, which has a customer service point at Manmao township about 32 km from Jairampur, plans to start one in Nampong.