Residents of the Capital seem unaffected by the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) decisions to pull out ₹2,000 notes from circulation, as many of them have not seen the currency in a while.
On Friday, the central bank announced that it will withdraw all ₹2,000 notes from circulation and advised the public to deposit such notes in their bank accounts or exchange them for other denominations by September 30. However, the currency will continue to remain legal tender after the deadline. While depositing these notes at banks, there will be an upper limit of ₹20,000 at a time.
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Many Delhiites believe that unlike the demonetisation of ₹1,000 and ₹500 notes announced in 2016, this change may not have a lasting impact.
For small-scale businesses, the RBI’s move will make little to no ripples as they mostly deal with lower-denomination notes. Vijay Rajput, a grocery shop owner at Laxmi Nagar, said, “Small business owners like us don’t have ₹2,000 currency. People with big businesses and transactions in crores might better understand the impact of this decision.”
Siddharth Singh, 40, a textiles store owner at Janpath, said it hardly makes any difference as most customers make online payments. “So the flow of cash in general has been quite low, let alone the bigger denominations,” he added.
However, some like Ratna Devi were infuriated. The owner of a ceramic utensils shop at Hauz Rani, the 34-year-old asked, “If they had to withdraw these notes, why did banks give us these notes when we went to withdraw cash a week before?”
Charu Bansal, a social worker, said, “It is funny that the Central government introduced the ₹2,000 note and then withdrew it as per its convenience.” She added that the decision will reflect poorly on the Centre.
