While the positive effects of demonetisation, if any, remain unnoticeable in the rural hinterland of the Anantapur district, the ill effects reverberate to this day.
Besides the obvious problems of lack of availability of cash causing problems to people in meeting daily expenses etc, the biggest sufferer was the handloom industry. In one fell swoop, demonetisation dried up demand for the handloom saris primarily and the power loom ones, putting thousands out of business and work.
“We used to sell saris worth around at least ₹40 lakh during months such as November and December of last year when there were not many marriages and auspicious occasions. But we sold only ₹10 lakh as no one simply had the money and there was no other means available then, or for that matter now, to transact and sell,” said Somasekhar, a leading seller in Dharmavaram town, famous for silk saris.
The industry in the Dharmavaram town alone, worth in sales of over ₹150 crore per month, lost sales by over 70% every month for well over four months post the announcement.
The power loom sector also experienced a similar fate for many months as owners failed to place orders for raw silk on account of lack of demand. It meant that production couldn’t be immediately brought back to normal even post near-normal availability of cash to the public.
This meant that several thousands of workers were put out of work for more than six months before being redrafted.
“More than 7,000 handloom weavers and their families became jobless for several months on account of demonetisation of the around 10,000 handlooms and families involved in weaving in and around Dharmavaram town alone,” said Shankar, a former employee of the APCO and an acclaimed authority on weavers’ problems.
He also said most of the recent spate of weaver suicides in Dharmavaram had been in those families that were out of work for several months during and after demonetisation.
Among the other industries that suffered was the granite and slab polishing industry which employs 15,000 people, mostly working in the 470 granite polishing and 1,600 black slab polishing units in and around Tadipatri town.
While the attractive and favourable policy interventions of the Telangana government were making the industry in Tadipatri competitive in terms of price, demonetisation virtually spelt the death knell with close to a thousand units shutting shop in the last few months.
“I didn’t sell a single square foot of granite slab for a period of close to a month after demonetisation and business was very bad for close to three months thereafter before picking up relatively over the last six months. Now, the GST is ruining what was left to be ruined by demonetisation. Paying salaries itself is becoming a problem,” said Ramgopal Reddy, owner of a granite slab polishing unit in Tadipatri who claims to know of at least of 100 units that went out of business.
