Euphoria turns into depression

Within a week labourers were forced to either sit idle at home or work on credit

on black money has now shifted to cashless society and that hardly impresses farmers because rural market integration will take years. The conflicting position on demonetisation is primarily driven by emotion and experience. Poor sections of society, including farmers and farm labourers, harbour a strong belief that accumulation of black money is the result of their exploitation by traders, government officials and professionals like doctors and lawyers. But the initial euphoria died down after one week because of various reasons.

The daily wage earners in rural non-farm employment, who constitute nearly 30 per cent of the rural workforce, suffered due to the closure of the unorganised sector in urban areas, while farm labourer suffered due to cash crunch at farmers' end. They were forced to either sit idle at home or work on credit. The markets in rural and small towns are deserted; the only busy places are banks where the police resorted to lathi charge at several places.

The government produced rabisowing statistics, claiming that sowing had increased despite demonetisation. It hardly matches with ground situation even if it is true. After one month the farmers are a depressed lot because money supply is not normal in villages and there are hardly any tangible results of this exercise.

Panwar is a member of the Uttar Pradesh State Planning Commission