More than 80 per cent of India’s workforce is in the informal or unorganised sector and has taken the full brunt of the demonetisation move.
DESPITE HAVING SPENT THREE DECADES unloading fruits and vegetables at Asia’s biggest fruits-and-vegetables market, Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi, Nabi Ahmed does not remember a time when business was this bad. “Except during times of peak militancy or intense winter in Kashmir, arrivals of apples have never been as affected as they are now,” he told Frontline, gazing at the largely vacant apple sheds nearby, which would usually be abuzz with the arrival and sale of cartons of apples at this time, the peak season for the fruit. He is not sure about actual numbers but says he is unloading fewer than half the number of cartons he used to unload previously. “Notebandi has affected everybody at the mandi. My daily earnings of Rs.500 to Rs.1,000 have come down by about half. There is a lot of unpredictability about the business because the number of shipments and the number of prospective buyers have come down drastically”, said Ahmed.
In some cases, stocks have arrived but remain unsold because there are no buyers. Take the case of Ranjit Singh, who has driven all the way from Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district. He brought a truckload of potatoes two days ago but they are lying unsold. “There is nobody to buy them because they don’t have new notes. That is why I have been waiting here for two days to sell this stock,” he explains, speaking with this correspondent at a small tea stall. The slump in trading activity has hit many ancillary businesses located around the market. The owner of this tea stall, for instance, is Ram Vilas, a migrant from Samastipur district in Bihar. “Ever since notebandi, my earnings have reduced by more than half. If I made Rs.1,000 a day before, I make only about Rs.250 now,” he said.
This story is from the December 9, 2016 edition of FRONTLINE.
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This story is from the December 9, 2016 edition of FRONTLINE.
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