This is an archive article published on November 13, 2016
Demonetisation effect: Despite wedding bells, silence at biggest market
Less then 50 metres away is Dariba Kalan, which trades in costume jewellery. On Saturday, the bustling streets wore a deserted look after a raid by income tax authorities.
At Kinari Bazaar, Saturday. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)
ON MOST Saturday afternoons, Shehzad and Sartaj are busy attending to customers who throng their wedding apparel shop, Alina Prince, in old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk. But this Saturday, their shutters are down.
“Wedding season is when we do maximum business. But we have been forced to close the shop. It is not that there is no demand in the market but there is very less cash for transaction of business,” says Shehzad. Between, 1.40 pm and 2.30 pm, Shehzad tells two customers that they are unable to take advance orders for sherwanis.
When both customers ask for the clothes to be delivered in the first week of December, Shehzad refuses and asks them to come next week. “I can take the orders, but I cannot ensure deliveries. Right now, my only priority is to deliver the old orders on time. I have to pay my workers and the tailors. For each sherwani, I have to pay a minimum of Rs 400 to the tailor. I have more than a dozen orders to be delivered. But I have no money to pay them. Only once I receive cash from these orders can I accept fresh orders,” says Shehzad.
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“The government should have ensured a credit facility before announcing the scheme. How can someone run a business with Rs 4,000 in hand?” he adds.
Less then 50 metres away is Dariba Kalan, which trades in costume jewellery. On Saturday, the bustling streets wore a deserted look after a raid by income tax authorities.
However, shopkeeper Vasant Kumar Gupta had other things to worry about. Gupta had to open his shop briefly after he could not deliver jewellery to a customer.
“I have a shortage of liquid cash. I had to return the money and cancel the order. There is a myth that people are hoarding money by buying gold. This is creating fear among people and hampering business. Because of this, even honest customers have to be sent back,” says Gupta.
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In Kinari Bazaar, famous for turning bundles of notes into garlands, dozens of shops are closed. Only a few can be found selling garlands of Rs 50 denomination.
Sachin Goyal said he had to ask six of his relatives to withdraw cash to shop for his cousin’s wedding and to buy these garlands. “The garland offered during a wedding is worth Rs 1 lakh. But we are buying worth a quarter of this,” says Goyal.
Sunil, owner of Divya Place, which sells these garlands, says, “Most shops are closed. Some are selling garlands with Rs 50 denomination. Once these are also sold out, we will stop selling them till the situation returns to normal.”
According to the traffic police about 30,000 weddings were set to take place on Saturday.
Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.
With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health.
His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award.
Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time.
Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More
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At Kinari Bazaar, Saturday. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)
