Visakhapatnam: Withdrawal of Rs 2000 note leaves no impact on petty vendors

Visakhapatnam: Even as the Rs 2,000 currency note is getting withdrawn from circulation, petty vendors say that it does not make any impact on their business. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently decided to withdraw Rs 2,000 currency notes from circulation. People were asked either to exchange or deposit the denomination at banks.

The move, however, does not leave much impact on the petty vendors, tiffin centre operators, fruit and vegetable sellers, among others, as they say it has been months since they saw the currency note.

“Scrapping the high value currency note will not affect our business in any manner. In fact, it is beneficial to our business in a way as it saves our drudgery of returning change when a customer gives us a Rs 2,000 note for a transaction,” opines Venkat Rao, a fruit vendor at Gopalapatnam.

In 2016, post the demonetisation move, the Rs 2,000 currency notes were introduced. During the initial days of its introduction, the note was extensively seen in the market. “Seven years back, when the purple-coloured note was introduced in the market, we used to face a lot of difficulties in giving back change for the transactions made.

Especially, at a time when customers buy for Rs 100 or Rs 200 but produce Rs 2,000 currency note for the transaction made. Returning Rs 1,800 used to be a big headache for us as we do not want to give up on the business due to lack of change,” recalls P Mahesh, who runs a makeshift tiffin centre at MVP colony.

Along with problems faced by the street vendors due to lack of change for a transaction, increased circulation of fake currency notes had turned out to be another major challenge to tackle.

Small traders mention that a single fake currency used to affect their days of hard work. A majority of them welcome withdrawal of Rs 2,000 from circulation as they say the move does more good for them.

Surprisingly, some of the vendors are seeing Rs 2,000 note after a long break now. Sharing his experience, a rice wholesaler and retailer Narayana, says, "It has been several months since I saw the Rs 2,000 note. However, as soon as the RBI announced its withdrawal from circulation, we have been receiving a number of such notes from our customers. When we question them, they say whatever little number of notes they have, they would like to transact rather than depositing them in the banks.”

A couple of years down the line, the RBI halted printing of Rs 2,000 notes. Gradually, the highest denomination currency note disappeared from the market. Back then, the reason for the disappearance of Rs 2,000 note was reportedly attributed to a rumour that political leaders were saving them for election needs.