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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Plight of the migrants: Jobless labourers return home after demonetisation

Plight of the migrants: Jobless labourers return home after demonetisation

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published Published on Dec 14, 2016   modified Modified on Dec 14, 2016
-Hindustan Times

Plight of the migrants: Jobless labourers return home after demonetisation

Twenty-three-year-old Avinash Kumar is planning to postpone his sister’s marriage. The money he had saved, working at a sweatshop in New Delhi’s Mongolpuri, is all but gone.

Kumar lost his job in about two weeks from the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, in a move that he termed as the biggest-ever offensive against black money. Kumar was among the millions of underclass Indians who cheered Modi for what they saw as a decision that may cause temporary disruptions but would benefit the nation’s longer-term interests. They were willing to weather the inconvenience and stand by their leader.

Lately though, people like Kumar are having rethink. Within days of the November 8 announcement, fresh orders dried up at the garment factory where Kumar worked; where most transactions, including payment of his wages, were in cash. A few days later, “my manager asked me to leave as he had no money to pay,” said Kumar who has since returned to Laxmipur, his native village in Gorakhpur, that counts among one India’s most impoverished.

“My sister’s wedding is planned for January, but I don’t see it happening. All my savings are gone and no one will give a loan to a jobless youth,” said Kumar who is the sole bread winner in a family of four. Villages across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha are seeing a steady spike in migrant workers returning home, according to dispatches from HT’s national network of journalists. They are returning from Kerala where the construction sector has come to a grinding halt; from Surat and other parts of Gujarat where diamond polishing mostly runs on cash; from Delhi and Mumbai and Punjab where labour-intensive businesses such as real estate and retail trade have been hit hard.

For those returning home, the narrative is slowly changing from temporary inconvenience to insecurity over livelihood. Umesh Sahni, a resident of Pakri Sahni Tola in the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, has been calling his employer at a fish packaging company in Udaipur, to know when he can resume work. “They say wait until the cash flow normalises,’ said Sahni, who had come home on holiday just before demonetisation was announced. Anxious and confused, he asks, “When do you think, things will get normal?”

In a November 13 speech, the prime minister assured the people of the country that normalcy would return in 50 days. Cash flows through the financial system may largely stabilise by the time we step into the new year, but no one is sure how long will it take to overcome the economic disruptions and dislocations caused by what now appears to be a highly flawed approach to tackling black money. It was said demonetisation would help destroy dodgy cash, ease inflation, lower interest rates and accelerate economic growth.

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Hindustan Times, 12 December, 2016, http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/the-flight-of-the-migrants-jobless-labourers-return-home-after-demonetisation/story-1H5HeMuLpTe7ZZTbG8hEnL.html


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