Baripada: With only five days to go for the end of demonetisation process of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination notes, people in rural pockets of Mayurbhanj district were left high and dry due to shortage of low value currency notes.
Tribals working as daily wagers, leaf collectors and small traders are the worst sufferers in the absence of banking facilities in remote areas.
According to reports, the tribals find it tough to trek to towns every day to exchange high value notes. Most often, shortage of notes forces them to borrow from money-lenders so as to meet their daily needs.
Take the case of tribal residents of Karnajia village in Khadishola panchayat under Baripada block. Over 300 people reside in the village. All of them eke out their living by collecting sal leaves.
However, the demonetisation move has directly hit their traditional occupation.
About 65 per cent of the tribals in the district are dependent of leaf plate making and leaf collection. They sell their produce to local money lenders, but their payment has been delayed.
A leaf plate maker gets Rs 30 for stitching 1,000 leaves into plates. This way, he/she can earn a maximum of Rs 100 a day. Sukanti, a leaf plate maker of the village, explained her situation after demonetisation. “Earlier, we used to get our payments in time and easily managed our expenses. Now, money-lenders give us new Rs 2,000 notes. We find it difficult to buy small amounts of groceries with high value notes,” she said.
Mamata Jena, another woman, said they have to wait for days together to get payments from money-lenders. “We also face problems in splitting our wages among ourselves which are paid in Rs 2,000 notes by money-lenders,” she rued.
Jena pointed out that small traders were also affected by the demonetisation while cash crunch has made matters worse for the
forest-based economy. PNN