The latest turnaround by Prime Minister Narendra Modi where he ordered the issuance of brand new 500 and 2000 rupee notes and banning the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes not only lopsided the whole economy, but it created a whole time mess for poor people.
According to TOI, the current scene is that private hospitals and chemist shops of Maharashtra will be accepting the old notes till 11th November so that the medical services can run smoothly.
The government doesn’t want that, people who belong to economically weaker section face these tough situations. So they ordered that private hospitals and chemists to receive the old notes. Many chemists downed their shutters as they ran out of change. This gave the buyers an opportunity to stock up the medicines with the excess cash. In Mumbai, a chemist sold diabetes medicines for one lakh rupee to a single buyer.
At many places, people had to face the wrath when cash was not accepted, “The hospital’s chemist refused to sell medicines for cash. So I had to finally borrow a relative’s credit card for the medicines,”.
By banning the old notes, and bringing in 500 and 1000 rupee notes will have some of the positive and negative effects to people.
Positive Effects:
Issuing the new currency
The latest ban will eradicate the duplicate currency which was openly roaming in the markets. This will create a barrier for this kind of currency.
Curbing corruption
The new 500 and 2000 rupee notes will help in curbing the corruption from many levels, like in real estate, etcetera. This will create a wall but to stop the further corruption the wall is needed to be protected.
Negative Effect
A big hit to daily wagers
People who are poor are badly hit as they have no bank accounts etcetera; they relied purely on money which they used to earn everyday i.e. sometimes 500 rupee notes and sometimes 1000 rupee notes.
Senior citizens who are living alone had to face the testing times as many of them were not having any credit or debit cards.
