“Stunned.” This is how many Kerala Pravasis described their initial reactions to the news of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation announcement on Tuesday night.
“As soon as the PM’s speech on the TV was over,” Jeby Thomas, a white-collar employee in a company in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, told The Hindu on the phone, “I called my wife in Pathanamthitta to put her in the crisis management mode.”
This was typical of the response of a large number of Kerala Pravasis in the Gulf countries. Mr. Jeby pointed out that his family always kept around Rs.50,000 liquid cash at home to meet emergency situations. “I told my wife how to dispose of the notes in the next few days.”
In the Gulf Cooperation Council countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bharain — Indian banks and money exchanges had stopped accepting the demonetised Indian notes on Tuesday night itself, sources said. In Oman, public sector banks like SBT and private money exchanges implemented the demonetisation immediately after Mr. Modi’s announcement.
K.V. Shamsudeen, who has been working in the UAE for four decades and who is a volunteer financial adviser to the Kerala Pravasis, said most of the Keralite community in the UAE was startled by the demonetisation.
He pointed out that Keralites usually kept a fair amount of Indian rupees with them so that they could use it while travelling to India. Now these “emergency funds” might turn out to be of no value. Mr. Shamsudeen pointed out that one UAE Malayali had on Wednesday sought his advice on how to cash the Rs.6 lakh he had kept with him.
A small section of Gulf Pravasis, mostly the low-paid manual workers domestic helps, send their earnings home using the illegal Hawala money transfer channel. The hawala agents, who keep huge amounts of cash for distribution, will be in big trouble too.
