Post-demonetisation, December 1 is the first pay day and the pains have not gone for the salaried class with long queues and ATMs running dry of cash. Across the board employees who get salary on first of the month must be finding hardship. Last time they escaped the trouble as the move came after the pay day. Even the worst affected would be the pensioners. Though banks are working full to tide over the currency crisis but some of them have adopted restricted cash withdrawal due to paucity of funds. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had sought 50-days time limit for streamlining the cash flow and for him it looks time is running short and the mess created to unearth the black-money stalked across the country. What is to be seen will the government would be able to streamline the situation so that hardships of the people could be reduced. Though majority of India have welcomed the move and has agreed to undergo the hardship for once for the sake of clean and transparent governance with corruption at its lowest ebb. Long queues were seen outside most banks and a limited number of ATMs which were dispensing cash, as people lined up in large numbers to withdraw money from their salary accounts for day-to-day expenditure. It is a measure of the ordinary Indian’s patience that no unruly outburst or unrest has as yet been reported. Also, the employees in most banks have faced up to this herculean task heroically even though they were left to carry the can for the policymakers’ failure to undertake advance preparations for a gigantic operation of replacing 23 billion currency notes. There is also sufficient merit in the argument that only a small portion of the black money is kept in cash and, therefore, any assault on the parallel economy will be insignificant and incomplete, unless other policy measures are taken to curb generation of different types of unaccounted income by bringing them under the tax net. But for now, any claim of victory over black money by merely demonetising currency notes would be highly exaggerated and would even appear cynical given the economic dislocation and inconvenience to people already caused by this decision.
