In what ways has demonetisation affected the lives of a common man?

My Article: In What Ways Has Demonetisation Affected The Lives Of A Common Man - Young Explorer Magazine July 2017

A change in India’s currency is a change of life in a common man too. Money is what a man needs to stay in this world and people are just working hard to earn money. Money is the middle-man of each and every work, so in India what would be its effect on a common man? Especially in India which is a country that works more on cash rather than being cashless. Even small workers and labours, including farmers, are paid in cash rather than paying through cheques and other cashless ways. Therefore, the effect of it is going to be big since India is a populated country and ranks 2^nd in the world, so circulating a new currency will definitely take time.

First of all, the demonetisation news was given on 8^th November 2016 and everyone had to change their currency before 31^st December 2016. Therefore, the time span was given only 1 month and 3 weeks. Many people like workers, labours, farmers and others did not have bank accounts and creating bank accounts would take few says because banks were crowded during demonetisation. Few people who did not even have their identification card, faced problems to create a bank account. Those people had to apply for an Aadhar card and PAN cards which take five to ten days. People had no idea about this and they had to get educated and they need to be aware of how to operate their account and they need to learn that what needs to be kept as a secret, for example, PIN number are not supposed to be told to anyone, etc. They need to know what is hacking, phishing, smishing, vishing, pharming, spam and all other details, otherwise they can be easily cheated. Therefore, learning this in a short span of time was a bit difficult too. So this is one of the problems that a common man faced.

Secondly, due to India’s huge amount of population, the banks were crowded so standing in queues killed time. Therefore workers and other members of the company were busy standing outside and took holidays for it. No labour in the company does not make the company run too. Therefore, the company went in losses. Standing in queues also caused dizziness and few people died too. The queues were also long because ATMs were out of cash. The government did not put the money in the ATM before the notice of demonetisation.

Third, the payment of small workers and labours were in cash. Therefore, it became difficult to make their payment.

Fourth, businesses which work on cash also faced problems too. Therefore, the sales of their products decreased too.

Fifth, people did not have much of cash with them, therefore it became difficult to travel, work, as well as spending money too.

Sixth, people who did not have smartphones couldn’t use mobile wallets and other facilities, and they can’t even afford internet too. Especially, people with low incomes.

Therefore, how can the government assume that everyone has a bank account and can easily have an access to internet and have smartphones too? People will find it difficult to operate such things that are completely new to them. However, in my opinion, I think demonetisation was the right move but not at the right time. India first needs to create a basic banking infrastructure at the start, educate others about such things, promote people to create bank accounts. Then putting up ATMs with enough of new notes and then announce to the country about its demonetisation that would take place. This wouldn’t have caused much of problems as we have faced it just now.