People across the State facing the heat of the demonetisation drive, the railway officials working at the ticket and the reservation counters and the porters working at Dehradun railway station are being hit the hardest. The officials say that they are in dire straits as they have no smaller currencies against the currency notes of Rs 2,000 they are mostly receiving from the people. The porters are in an even graver plight. They say that they are being forced to give free service for the same dearth of smaller currency with the people.
This correspondent while talking to the railway officers, porters, passengers and those who came to the station for tickets got the impression that they are in deep problem on account of the smaller currencies and changes becoming increasingly unavailable.
A railway official manning a ticket counter said that they are at a wit’s end as to how they would return changes for the 2000 currency notes the people are giving them. “How can we conjure up 100 rupee currencies in sufficient number to give them the changesIJ
The sooner the new 500 rupee notes are made available the better for all,” the officer said while insisting on anonymity.
Another railway official dealing with the people queuing up to buy tickets said that he is asking the people to pay in the now- scrapped 500 currencies rather than in 2000 currencies. “We lack smaller currencies to give them the changes. They are helpless too as the banks and ATMs are yet to issue the new 500 currencies. We both are in deep trouble,” he said.
A person standing in a queue outside reservation centre said, “ATM has given me a Rs 2000 note. I wonder whether I would manage the ticket. The rail officials are insisting that we should pay the fare in smaller currencies.”
A trader selling tea, biscuits, cold drinks, water bottles and other items from the railway platforms said that they are in dire straits too. “The volume of my daily sale has dwindled by 60 percent,” he said.
Some porters were found huddling together at the gate of the railway station with faces emanating despair. “Can you imagine our plight when the passengers pay us either in notes of the now-scrapped 500 or new notes of 2000IJ They say they have no smaller currencies with them. It is proving terribly difficult for our livelihood. If things go on this way we would have to starve,” said one of such porters.