Discussing Demonetization in detail (Home Visit 8)

PGP Roll No.: PGP-16-102

PGP Student Name: Ishaan Akshay Srivastav
Sitara Roll No.: 729
Sitara Name: Priyankakumari Sureshkumar Mahato
Date of the Visit: 06.12.2016
Visit Start Time: 7.00 PM
Visit End Time: 9.00 PM
Family Members Present during the visit Grandfather, Aunt (Mami) and 2 Younger
Brothers

Delay in the Visit:

Since DMS exam was scheduled on Monday, the meeting couldn’t be completed over the weekend.
And due to the exam, the meeting couldn’t take place on Monday too. Hence, we decided to carry out
the meeting on Tuesday night after Priyanka came back from her classes.

Discussing about Demonetization:

Since Priyanka’s parents stay back in her village in Bihar, she stays in Mumbai with her grandparents
and her uncle and aunt (Mama and Mami) and hence I interviewed her grandfather for the Abhyudaya
questionnaire which we had to fill on Demonetization. While filling the form, I discussed
demonetization in detail with Priyanka’s grandfather and discovered the various issues that their
household was having. Priyanka’s grandfather told me that they had suffered losses of approximately
Rs. 10,000.00/- which were yet to be received in the form of payments from different people. Also, he
expressed that the condition in the community was not good and few households were facing an acute
shortage of cash. It was good for their household that they had sufficient cash in smaller
denominations and thus, routine activities like buying groceries did not get affected much His opinion
on the overall situation was that it’s a good move by the government but there should have been
better planning and execution. The government should have first withdrawn Rs. 500 notes and then
given some gap to let the situation settle before withdrawing Rs. 1000 notes. He also stated that by
introducing notes of Rs. 2000/-, Black Money in the country would increase as with the thinner notes
of higher denomination, the black money holders would be able to hide more money as the cash
bundles would be thinner and thus more convenient to hide. He instead felt that the Government
should have withdrawn 500 and 1000 Rs. notes and supplied Rs. 200 notes in return instead of the Rs.
2000 note. Finally, he requested Abhyudaya to help them with an information session on
Demonetization and its implications along with knowledge sharing about non-cash form of payments
like PayTM, since there is zero knowledge in the community about these payment methods.

Bonding over MSD:

After the discussion, Priyanka and I sat down to finish the movie on Mahendra Singh Dhoni which we
had started last week. It was a good choice to finish the movie as Priyanka was looking forward to it
and also, since again she had been through a very hectic day with school and then classes. Again, like
last week, I connected the highs and lows shown in the movie and asked Priyanka to take inspiration
from the movie. During the course of the movie, she told me that Abhyudaya’s boys’ football team
was going to Chembur to play in a football tournament. However, fixtures of the girls’ matches were
not known yet. She also informed me that Abhyudaya’s picnic this year had been cancelled due to lack
of funds. Also, Priyanka was looking forward to performing at SPANDAN, which is to be held on 17th
December, as last year Abhyudaya had received a token of Rs. 25,000.00/- during SPANDAN. We
ended the visit by deciding that we shall watch science educational videos next time and learn from
them.