Demonetisation revolution hits firms and workers as cash runs out, but now they are braced for the next stage making all salary payments digital Down one of the hundreds of dusty lanes that make up Gandhi Nagar market, Delhis largest textile bazaar, the small factory where Neeraj Sharma produces girls jeans is quiet. Normally you couldnt walk in here, he says, ambling across the concrete shop floor, past dormant sowing machines and piles of unfinished denim.
Sharma estimates around 80 of the currency in circulation from the most cash-dependent major economy in the world. More than a month on, Indias Reserve Bank has issued on 60 of workers are paid in cash. Already struggling, businessmen such as Sharma are dreading the prospect of more enforced digital migration.
How do you think I can pay the workers with a cheque if they dont have a bank account? he asks, in a tiny office thick with incense smoke. And it takes three days to clear a cheque. What will they eat during those days?
Mohan Sharma, who owns a textile factory with his brother Neeraj in Gandhi Nagar, Delhis largest textile market Photograph: Michael Safi for the Guardian His reasons are not just altruistic. Apart from potentially raising his tax bill in a country where just 1 of the accounts still lie empty. Asha Devi sits spread-legged on the Sharma factorys floor, using fine scissors to cut loose threads from piles of jeans. A migrant labourer from Bihar state, she has a bank account, but has not been able to access her money since early November. Ive been standing in queues from 7am until 5.30 in the evening, she says. I still cannot withdraw money, and I lose a day of work each time.
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The experience has heightened her scepticism about being paid online. I am a daily wage worker and Im not sure if Ill have a job tomorrow, she says. If I get in hand, I know I have the money. Cash has a cold, hard certainty that still matters to itinerant workers. There are many factory owners who will make these daily wage workers into fools, Devi adds. Theyll tell them they have deposited the money when they havent. In theory, its a great idea to actually ensure that workers actually get the wage theyve been promised, says Aparna, the president of the Indian Federation of Trade Unions, who like many Indians uses only one name. The downside is: we cant do it. Its a bit like say the government has announced the end to all poverty by tomorrow. Its not taking into account any of the obvious constraints that even a child in India could see. Around one in three Indians still dont have bank accounts, she says, many of them put off by the need to navigate banking bureaucracy. For people who dont have matching identity cards say, if somebody made a mistake typing their name then its a nightmare, she says. Nagendra Sarkar, another of Sharmas employees, has been trying to open an account in Delhi, but keeps running into an obstacle: he has no fixed address. The bank people are asking for papers to prove that its my account, he says. It is one of many points at which the digital salary plan, and the entire cashless vision, butt up against the stubborn reality of Indian working life. Take an example of rickshaw puller who transfers goods from my shop to the factories, says Pyarlal, a lace factory owner in Gandhi Nagar. For one trip I pay him 100 rupees. Does the government expect me to give him a cheque? I mean, how do I pay him? Such a major reform, even one that might benefit workers, cant be enforced overnight, Aparna says. You have to do it gradually, let the system be put in place, create the infrastructure first. Mihir Sharma, a senior fellow at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, agrees. The law might well be passed, he says. But it would likely be widely ignored, which is the fare of most labour regulation in India. Digital payments might be novel, but the ambitious plan is an old Indian pathology, he says. The belief that if you legislate something, it happens.
Originally found athttp://www.theguardian.com/us
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