The demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes has hit the rural population hard, especially daily wage agricultural labourers.
With land-owners short of valid notes, the workers are forced to either accept demonetised notes and later get them exchanged in banks, skipping a day’s work, or agree to indefinite delays in payments.
“We worked in fields of various farmers in our village for one week. But, nobody paid us as they too are facing shortage of valid currency notes. As a result, our debts in grocery shops and other establishments have risen. Then, we had to accept the demonetised notes, which we were able to exchange at a bank, skipping a day’s work,” Satyappa, an agricultural labourer from Bapur village of Raichur district, told The Hindu .
The condition of farmers are no better. They don’t have enough valid currency to pay labourers as they have not received payment from traders who bought their crops.
“I sold 10 quintals of red gram, but received no payment yet. The traders, who purchased the crop, are telling me to accept demonetised currency notes or to wait. We are finding it difficult to pay the dues to labourers and traders from whom I had bought farm inputs,” Amaranna Gowda Patil, a farmer from Kodekal village in Yadgir district said.
Kalesh, a farmer from Hanchinal village in Jewargi taluk, Kalaburagi district, who owns 20 acres of rain-fed lands and doesn’t have a bank account, shared his problems of paying the labourers he employed for cotton harvesting.
“I am finding it difficult to face labourers who are coming everyday for payments. They usually don’t demand their wages often as we pay them once a week. Since they too are facing similar problem of lack of valid currency, they are coming to my home hoping wages,” he said.
Reduced demand
Villages, particularly smaller hamlets predominantly inhabited by labourers community such as Lambani tandas, are facing a reduced demand for labour.
Normally, farmers and sugar factory managers come to these settlements and book groups of labourers or ‘cane cutting gangs’ in the first week of November.
“But no one has come to our tanda till now,” said Amrut Lal, a Lambani farm labourer from Seva Lal tanda near Bidar, who, with his family, usually go for cane harvesting in Khanapur, Malchapur and nearby villages every year.
Issue of change
Those who managed to exchange their demonetised currency and got wages in Rs. 2,000 notes are facing the problem spending it as grocery shops and other smaller establishments are refusing to accept the big notes for smaller bills.
“Shopkeepers either don’t accept the notes for small bills. Even if they do, they ask us to keep taking rations till the amount is exhausted,” Ramanagouda, a farm labourer from Sangankal village in Ballari taluk, said.
Fallen prices
It has also caused the fall of prices of farm produces.
“Cotton traders in Jewargi and Kalaburagi were ready to purchase my crop, but would pay in Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes. When I demanded Rs. 100 notes, they asked me to sell the crop at reduced rate. The normal rate is Rs. 5,500 a quintal but I will have to sell at Rs. 4,500 a quintal if I want to get payment in Rs. 100 notes,” Mr. Kalesh, told The Hindu .
Raju, a progressive farmer from Shankarbanda village of Ballari taluk, shared a similar experience.
“If we take our harvested chilli crop to the market, the trader would seek three months time to repay or ask to sell the crop at a reduced rate owing to want of valid currency,” he said.
(With inputs from Rishikesh Bahadur Desai in Bidar, M. Ahiraj in Ballari and Ravikumar Naraboli in Yadgir)
