It’s been more than 10 days since the Big Billion Announcement made by our Prime Minister. Some of us badly hit by the demonetisation of notes. Despite this, each one of us has a different perspective about it. Some think the move made by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a great one while some say it wasn’t. Here are some quotes of different people living in Goa and facing the ongoing crisis – demonetization!
“I have two old notes of Rs.500 and 2 new notes of Rs.2000 and cannot withdraw any money from the ATM as there is no sufficient money for anyone. I feel so bankrupt right now. Like I have the money but nobody is accepting it. And I don’t get to go out anywhere. I’m literally surviving on the change that I had collected in Goa as pocket money. I hope this dilemma gets over soon so everything can get back to normal.”
– Roxanne Azevedo, Dental student from Goa, studying in Belgaum.
“I had to stand in a queue like everyone else for more than 3 hours to deposit cash in the bank. One day it was so urgent because I needed to transfer money in my airline account to book flights. Just for this, I had to shut down my office to stand in a queue. 8 days back I was unable to use the new notes because nobody had change. I had a debit card so it was fine with me.”
“But what about the poor people living in distant villages? How will they survive? Oh come on Government you should have thought about these poor people and done something real quick. Tourists have become frustrated as their currency has no value here and they can’t exchange too. They don’t have bank accounts in India. So many came to my office to ask for change and left in dismay. Other outsiders settled in Goa are taking advantage of the situation and are exchanging money with tourists for a lower value.”
– Valerie Rodrigues, Tours and Travel organiser, Calangute.
“Demonetization would have been good if done systematically. When the government decides to take a drastic step, they also need to have measures to combat their actions. I had to wait in humongous lines to exchange notes or deposit. And the most irritating thing is that you can exchange money only once a day. If they wanted to do that, they should have subsidized the provisions so that it was made available within 4000 Rupees for the entire month.
– Sheryl Vas, Entrepreneur, Porvorim
“Honestly, the demonetization hasn’t affected me much. Just had a couple visits to the ATM and banks. But standing in lines is definitely cumbersome. That should have been made more efficient and organised in a better way. I swipe my card for shopping and stuff. But I think you gotta take into consideration the people who aren’t much into technology and swiping cards and stuff like that. What should be better managed is the way the whole demonetization process has taken place. It should have been eased in carefully with more preparation.
– Agnelo Raymond D’souza, Music teacher and Asst.Professor
“I live alone with my husband. We are old and don’t have a lot of money to spend on a daily basis. We feel bad to ask our children for money all the time. They give us whatever we need and sometimes go out of the way to make us feel good. All of a sudden, a Modi attack striked the nation. Now I’m left with 2 notes of 50 rupees and 2 notes of 2 thousand rupees. It’s been so many days and I have used up all the change that I had to survive. We disconnected the satellite connection as we didn’t have the money to pay for it. Nobody takes the 2 thousand rupees note. Some say it is fake and some say they don’t have change. I hope all of this suffering will come out to be something worth it.”
– Senior citizen couple, Baga
“It is a good move by Modi but it affected me badly because of the shortage of notes. I have only Rs.2000 notes in my pocket and no one is ready to accept it as it is a high amount. I had to purchase something worth Rs.700, I gave a note of Rs.2000 but still they didn’t accept it because they were out of change. And I have to suffer for almost everything and can’t use my debit card everywhere I go, like buying vegetables in the market. I have to starve and remain hungry almost everyday as I can’t afford to go and eat something at KFC or a big budget hotel to suffice my hunger.”
-Shirish Kunkalekar, Reporter
