When Chennai vendors turned note banks

TOI 

The first time a customer pulled out a Rs 500 note for a cup of coffee and a plate of sundal on Tuesday night, Suresh Kumar, a tea vendor in Kottupuram, didn't find anything amiss as he returned the balance. When six others followed within a span of an hour, wielding currency of the same denomination and asking for change, he frowned.

"People in big cars stopped at my shop to buy vadais and all of them gave me `500. I sensed something wasn't right," said Kumar, whose kiosk is barely more than a few discarded sheets of plywood leaning against each other. It was Marimuthu K, a vegetable vendor across the road who broke the news to him — about the Centre's decision to demonetize `500 and `1,000 notes starting Tuesday midnight.

Many like Kumar, who usually blend in to the city's dust, seemed to gain colour overnight — not for the things they sell but the notes they held. Although business was lean for small traders, wholesalers and those who earn their livelihood in cash on Wednesday, many of them said they were approached by office-goers to trade their currency notes of lower denomination for `500 notes. "Very few wanted to buy from us. The few who did, wanted it for the change," said Marimuthu, who borrowed money from a money lender to buy his stock as wholesale dealers refused to accept `500 and `1,000 notes.

By Wednesday noon, while major retail outlets remained open, the smaller vendors shut shop. "Children seem to be the only ones with money now as their pocket money is mostly in `10, `50 or `100 denominations," said Bharat Kumar, a pani-puri vendor on G N Chetty Road, T Nagar. He wound up for the day by 5PM, four hours before his usual time. Some, who didn't want to lose out on a day's wage, sold their goods on credit. A Das, a coconut vendor in Nandanam is among them. He managed to earn `300 on Wednesday, compared to the `2,000 he usually makes in a day.


Chennai has around 1.5 lakh vendors and 75,000 domestic workers, according to estimates by members of the Tamil Nadu chapter of the National Domestic Workers Movement and National Association of Street Vendors of India. A chunk of them trade in cash, and some don't even have a bank account. "I was given `3,000 in `5,00 denomination as my salary. If they had given me some sort of warning before, I would have got it changed," said K Malika, a domestic help in Arumbakkam.

Raghunathan N, an executive in Lakshmi Vilas bank, said many of these workers in the unorganised sector have bank accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana scheme. "Even if they don't have an account, most banks have business correspondents to guide these people to open new accounts," he said. For transaction below `4,000 they can exchange their currency in any of the 19 RBI offices, post offices, commercial banks, private and public sector banks. "We have also been given a directive by the RBI to open accounts on priority basis. Usually opening an account will take 10 working days. Now we have to do it within 2-3 working days," he said.