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MODI HINTS AT MORE ACTION
* Hinting at more action to unearth black money, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said those holding unaccounted money will not be spared
* There is no "guarantee" that no further steps would be taken after December 30 till when people can deposit the demonetised notes, he said
* I make it very clear that if anything unaccounted comes up, then I will check its records since Independence. Will deploy as many people as required for this, Modi said
>> See pg 11
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CURRENCY PRINTING
PRESSES RUNNING
AT FULL CAPACITY
>> See pg 12
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Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes from irculation, jewellers in the state are finding it extremely difficult to find customers.
Hordes of customers visited jewellery shops on November 9 to buy gold with invalidated currency notes, but were turned away by the jewellers. Pramith Raikar, president, Goa Gold Dealers Association, said, “We have issued a circular to jewellers in Margao instructing them not to sell jewellery in exchange for old currency notes.”
Raikar also said that the overall business of jewellers in Goa has come down by a whopping 75% since November 9.
An official from Tara Jewellers in Panaji, said, “Ever since the demonetisation, we are almost doing zero business. We have been told by the management to sell jewellery only by cards or cheque. We have to say no to customers who want to buy jewellery by cash.”
Meanwhile, customers are finding it hard to find cash to buy groceries, let alone jewellery. Another jeweller from Panaji said, “Housewives often have the habit of saving some money every month to buy jewellery. How can they buy jewellery now when it is so hard to find cash?”
Jewellers were expecting good demand this year because of the auspicious days aplenty for marriages in 2016 as per Hindu calendar. They were caught by surprise by this sudden withdrawal of liquidity from the system.
Jewellers also clarified that rules like production of PAN card for purchase of jewellery over Rs 2 lakh existed before November 8 as well.
But, the fear of central government increasing its vigil on black money has made jewellers extremely cautious and they are now not keen to carry out any transaction of more than Rs 2 lakh value without insisting on PAN card.
Interestingly, this is not the only rule which exists in the system to have more transparency in jewellery transactions.
Raikar said, “Rules like you have to show PAN card for buying jewellery worth more than Rs 50,000 by cash has existed earlier. Similarly, most people don’t know that if they are selling old jewellery to jeweller and if the value of transaction is more than Rs 20,000, then the transaction can only happen through a cheque and not cash.”
All this shows that the central government has been trying to tighten its grip on the jewellery trade. The only thing which demonetisation has done is that it has sucked a lot of liquidity from the system and people have become extremely wary to buy jewellery.
A number of customers pay for jewellery in equal monthly instalment. In such a case, they pay for their jewellery every month a certain sum for say 10 or 12 months, and they can buy jewellery upon the payment of last instalment.
Such customers will have problem this month, if they can’t find sufficient cash to pay to their jeweller and also, if they are unwilling to pay by card. A jeweller said, “In such cases, we may give them more time to pay. But, we will have to see that case by case.”
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ATMs, the most sought after destination
No one could have predicted a week ago that people would be running from pillar to post over the next weekend to find which ATMs have cash. Although the situation was better on Saturday, but it was nothing but toil for people to withdraw cash from ATMs. And, even if they were lucky, at Rs 2,000 per card per day limit, the cash was way below their requirement.
'The Goan' brings some real-life situations, which highlight agony of search for cash in the state.
• A taxi driver got a call when he was driving, he picked it and traffic police took notice of it. When cops asked him to pay Rs 600 fine, he showed a note of Rs 500 and another of Rs 100. Cops refused to accept Rs 500 note and told him to hand over his license and pay the fine later. He was still lucky as he found six notes of Rs 100 in his taxi to pay the fine
• Jolana Monserrate in Caranzalem was wondering how she will pay her maid. She said she has never been in a situation like this and nothing much can be done about it as she can’t withdraw more than Rs 2,000 per day from ATM. Even to deposit cash, she first went to SBI’s branch on 18th June Road, waited in a queue for an hour and when the branch took lunch-break, she came to HDFC Bank’s Caranzalem branch, stood in a queue again to deposit cash
• Two people, who were in Goa for a trip and were in dire need of cash, pleaded with a security guard of an ATM in suburbs of Panaji to give them his mobile number so that they could call him later in the day to know if the ATM has cash or not
• A taxi driver, who also owns a restaurant in Bambolim, came to State Bank of India’s 18th June Road branch to deposit Rs 10,000. There were so many people at the branch that in the chaos he somehow lost his money and there was no way to get it back. He lamented that even at his restaurant he has to give credit to his customers, who too have run out of cash
