NELLORE: Still grappling with the demonetisation impact, some 300 vendors at the main vegetable market located on the busy Trunk Road have not yet made any effort to shift to the digital mode largely because of their apprehension with regard to public response.
The vendors are hesitating on this aspect in the light of the fact that a huge portion of their daily sales are smaller transactions from Rs. 10 to Rs. 50 by their customers.
Their chief concern is whether the common public will patronise the swiping cards even if they install them after learning how to use them.
“Most of our vendors are not educated. But they cannot lose business for longer days. They have been ready to go for card transactions but there are many doubts in this regard,” said Subbaiah, a vendor at the vegetable market.
Ever since the demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes came into effect, there has been an impact on the sales. The general public is not able to bring necessary change and these vendors are also not able to mobilise enough change to meet the daily transactions.
Some vendors are giving credit to known customers and taking a risk to wait for longer period for repayments.
In some cases, the big customers like hotels and restaurants are directly transferring money into the vendors’ bank accounts. Most of these are savings accounts and not current accounts usually meant for business firms for carrying out their transactions.
The general feeling is the problem will be solved to a great extent if Rs. 100, Rs. 50, Rs. 20 and Rs. 10 currency notes are increased in circulation. These are mostly used in smaller transactions involving vegetable markets, street corner shops and road-side mobile vendors.
Meanwhile, the queues at the banks and ATMs continued on Wednesday also with most people looking dissatisfied at the withdrawal limits being imposed on their savings accounts transactions.
As Rs. 2,000 notes are still being issued, the public is unhappy that they are finding it still very difficult to change the high value notes in the market. For smaller purchases like milk and fruits and vegetables, it has become indeed a difficult task these days.
