Apart from Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currencies, those who have vanished are scrap-collectors or kabadiwalas with otherwise their noisy racking!
This must be the reason behind a scene at Kokar when a gang of rag pickers was collecting the uselessly thrown away newspapers and unused papers in their sacks. The items normally would have fetched substantial money in return to the owner; usually at the rate varying from Rs 12 to Rs 15 per kg.
The saga got better explanation and validation from 17-year old Kamran who couldn’t afford the luxury of taking a nap during otherwise one of the busiest business hours at 12 noon.
Courtesy demonetisation which almost ate up business of his gang hundreds of paper scrap collectors within the city, he has been enjoying this luxury since at least a fortnight in almost similar fashion every day, sitting and resting his back on a small pile of cartons and newspaper scrap under a small tin-shade which happens to be one among a dozen at scrap collection market in the Upper Bazaar.
“This is the only consistency (taking nap) we all are witnessing among scrap collector guys since a fortnight. Scrapping papers (currency notes) has brought us on the verge of being in business. No wonder every other present here gets found sleeping during peak hours in absence of liquidity, especially the small denomination currency notes which paper scrap collectors require the most to collect paper from homes,” said a scrap dealer Sanjay Kumar.
The scrap dealers in the market used to do a business Rs 10,000-15,000 every day until a month ago that has fallen to less than Rs 5,000 a day.
“This business is also based on mutual trust with only 30-35 per cent payments being made from top to bottom in the line. If someone comes with scrap, we promise to pay after some time, that also on deflated rates. The business is suffering miserably,” said another scrap dealer Pratap Singh.
When asked where his friends and colleagues have gone, Kamran said that most of them are back to their villages. “I don’t know whether demonetisation would be after a couple of years, nor I want to know.
I am missing my fellow scrap-collectors who have left for their villages, one by one, within a week due to loss of business.
Haath me khulle paise hi nahi hain to kya lene jaayenge (When we don’t have smaller denomination notes in hands, how can we go to collect scrap)IJ” asked Kamran in reply.
There are over a dozen scrap dealers like Sanjay Kumar, who collect scraps from door-to-door paper as Kabaadiwalah and sell them to up in the channel. But business of all of them has come to a halt. “Dealers to whom we sell collected paper scraps are not ready to pay in cheques, and we can’t receive any illegal tender anymore. Moreover, even banks are not releasing small denomination notes.
Moreover, paper scrap rates have fallen down by up to 40 per cent, hence even door-to-door collectors are not receiving scraps from homes,” said one Pawan Kumar, a scrap dealer.
Though most of them appeared supporting demonetisation drive, almost everyone also claimed that the move taking business to a period of slowdown of at least six months.
“We are not against making online payments. But we needed some time to get equipped with the machines and to be familiar with it so that the sufferings could be avoided,” said Sanjay Kumar.