The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Not far from Delhi, trying to grasp ATMS, phone banking
OUTSIDE HER one-room home in Noida’s Barola village, Rahisan Khatun, 35, places wood under her stove, which keeps her warm, and cooks chicken for her family. She takes a peek to check the dish, before going inside.
“What is this? Can you get money from the bank with this?” she says, pointing to a cheque book. Her neighbour Phool Kumar explains how to use a cheque book and an ATM card. Holding up a card, she asks, “But if I can’t read or write, how will I use this?”
Khatun, her husband Kalar Bax Mansoori, 41, and most of her neighbours are daily wagers working as masons. Mansoori, a migrant labourer from Madhya Pradesh, says he never went to school. He can’t read or write, and has never been to a bank.
“I can’t even tell you my phone number. There is no question of using a phone to make payments,” he says.
Since demonetisation, Mansoori and his family of four have faced a series of predicaments. “My employers have no cash, and they owe me Rs 15,000. I have asked a local shopkeeper to give me oil, rice and dal on credit. A few days ago, my sister-in-law fell sick. I had to borrow Rs 30,000-Rs 40,000 from people,” Mansoori says.
He says work is not hard to find, but contractors and clients don’t always pay on time. In a polythene bag, he has kept four Aadhaar cards — his own, his wife’s and his two children’s.
“I thought it would be better to have a card with our Noida address on it. So I got my wife’s address changed, though I am yet to change mine. Since we may all need bank accounts now, this is all we have as ID proof,” says Mansoori.
About 8 km from Barola, a settlement of migrant workers in Khoda Colony along NH-24 has been quietly coping with the effects of demonetisation.
Here, Shiv Kumar, 25, a native of Allahabad, makes breakfast inside a room he shares with two others. “I don’t have a bank account. I work as a tailor. Our employers said they would open our accounts but I think they are taking us for a ride. We were paid last month’s salary in old notes. I wasn’t able to send money home or pay rent,” he says.
From a nearby window, Asma, 45, who hails from Farrukhabad, looks out for her husband Sayyed, who sells bangles on a cart. “There is no income unless money changes hands. If everything becomes cashless, our future could be difficult,” she says.
Faces of migrant daily wage labourers at Khoda labour chowk are grim. At least 60-70 of them — many from villages in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand — await employment at the chowk every morning. Some of them have no option but to return empty-handed.