On Saturday, just as light showers
relieved Mangalureans of their sweat, caused by more than just the heat of the
sun, I was for the first time a part of a cashless reality show, one I had seen
only on television. I had visited the
Big Bazar supermarket – the malls are only place where cards can be used to buy
groceries and other small value items - and piled up a bill for necessary and
unnecessary things of Rs: 1200 odd. Like
others, I stood in the queue to make my payment. I had Rs: 750 in cash and the
balance I hoped to pay by debit card.
The lady ahead of me in the queue
ran up a bill of a similar amount and proudly produced a Rs: 2000 pink bill to
pay for her purchases. The guy at the
counter explained that he did not have change.
She was sent around to other counters to collect change – Basically it
was her problem, not theirs. In the
meanwhile, the cashier took up my trolley and made out my bill for which I
explained I would part pay in cash and part pay via card. He accepted my proposal and took in hand my
cash and input the same into the pos terminal. He then took my card to bill the
balance. But the server was down by that
time and his POS was stuck. He could not open it and could not close my bill.
At this point I suggested to him to return my card and my cash and I would
leave the stuff I proposed to buy at the counter as it was getting late. Already
half an hour had gone by. (The Government says we must be patient, so I was,
believe me. I am very obedient that way) By this time the lady who had been
running around for change came back and demanded her change. Despite my
protests, having already taken my cash into account for part payment of my
bill, the cashier handed over all I gave him to her. She packed her bags and
left thanking her stars for the small mercy.
But I was stuck. Several people came and went, trying to solve
the problem of the locked POS. Finally after another half an hour went by, they
brought a key and opened it and returned my cash to me. Thankfully there was
that exact amount in the cash till. Till
today I have not been able for the life of me to figure out why the cashier did
not hand over the change in the drawer to the lady who preceded me but made her
run around the entire shop looking for change! Or for that matter open the
locked pos with a key when all else failed in the first place.
Sadly we want plastic to replace
paper through an electronic device which does not work because the system is so
bad and unreliable. The cart before the
horse? Or just part of our Chaltha hai attitude?.
My reality check did not end there.
Today I had been to a bank to collect a cheque book. They asked me to give a written request with
all details for the same, this when all details are already available in my
account opening form!. While that in itself may not be much of an
inconvenience, it is certainly a waste of time, but they had no time to look
into it or just wanted to be doubly sure in the current environment of suspicion.
Be that as it may, what happened to the person ahead of me, was to the say the
least, disturbing. She submitted a form,
I’m not sure for what, after which she was cross questioned about her signature
and asked to sign in front of the officer again, before they accepted it was
hers! She seemed quite disturbed to be treated like a common criminal.
While I commiserate with the bank
staff – they are apprehensive about being asked to answer for anything amiss,
they have become so suspicious that they do tend to go overboard. Can we blame
them? No. In fact we must commend them for their patience and perseverance in
the face of severe stress. But in today’s nasty environment, everyone is a
suspect – Whether you are bank staff or a bank consumer, you are first a
criminal and must prove yourself honest, that’s the feeling one takes home
these days especially when it comes banks, money or for that matter any
transaction. Apparently the only honest
guys in this nation are those that knew about the decision to demonetize before
it was announced. None else. Truly a sad
commentary on the way the entire exercise – good or bad - was handled.
A cash rich society to a less
cash society - the RBI plans to print only 50% or a little more than that of
the demonetised currency - to a cashless society where PayTm, Visa, Master Card
and Aadhar cards rule the roost is where we are headed I learn from the
newspapers and the Television. It’s an
ideal being touted by the Government of the day to justify its demonetization
drive, the others being a digitalized world, where paper – whether it is
currency or a government file is present more by its absence, and environment
unfriendly plastic and electronic trails of correspondence and expenditure
prevail.
Maybe the move also coincides
with the Paris convention on Climate Change which India ratified on Gandhiji’s
Birthday this year as the forests will be saved, and the earth exploited to
create this world of plastic. A tough
compromise, but then it was a tough decision – so say those in the know! This
is not withstanding Wikileaks and the Kremlin’s hacking of the Democratic
National Committee’s correspondence relating to the Trump-Clinton presidential
race.
A good move or a bad move, is
difficult to say at this point, but the manner in which it has been handled in
this age of information and technology – without sensitivity or preparation is
shocking. A case in point is a What’sApp question I received – It asked if the
RBI or the government had made any new announcement post demonetization over
the last ten minutes, as for the last ten
minutes he had been in the shower and was out of touch with happenings in
the country! This question in reference to the frequent announcements about
limits and legalities over the past 24 days!
It is also not clear if the demonetization exercise and its objectives
have been thought through fully – especially whether India is reasonably well
prepared literacy, infrastructure and logistics wise for this
transformation. But I guess like all
things – this too shall pass and we will find a new bogey!
No comments:
Post a Comment