Sunday 25 December 2016

‘Cashless? That’s a joke’

Lanura is a town with no bank and unpredictable power. It now lives with the weight of a tag: "J&K'S first cashless town"

The Indian Express25 Dec 2016BASHAARAT MASOOD and KUWAR SINGH

Shuaib Masoodi

The town, with a populace of around 1,500, has just six shops — a scientist and five merchants. None of the businesspeople has a card machine or has ever utilized Net managing an account.

AROUND NOON on a Thursday, there is no power in Lanura. A sudden blast of wind had snapped the electrical cables and they now lie languidly over the tree tops. Sitting in his once-over basic supply shop, Ghulam Mohammad Dar says, "This is the way it is here. We scarcely get power for six hours a day. What's more, when we do, it is in spurts. We can never arrange our day."

Welcome to Lanura, J&K'S first authoritatively pronounced "cashless" town. Here, most villagers haven't seen or even known about charge cards; the Internet doesn't work and when it does, is frustratingly moderate; and power is frequently helpless before the components.

"Obviously, our town is money less," says Ghulam Hassan Sheik, the previous sarpanch of the town, scarcely concealing his mockery. "We are a town of day by day wage workers. We procure a couple of thousands a month and now they say we should figure out how to live without money. So yes, we are cashless," he says sitting on his hindquarters outside one of the shops in the focal point of the town.

On December 15, a discharge on the official site of region Budgam guaranteed that Lanura had turned into the "primary town in Jammu and Kashmir" to go "cashless". "No less than one individual from every family unit has been prepared in EPS (Electronic Payment System). Thirteen vendors have been brought under EPS... The aggregate number of people prepared on EPS in the town has touched 150," the discharge read.

An unmetalled street snakes into Lanura town, 13 km from the locale headqaurters of Budgam in focal Kashmir. It's one of the several towns pronounced "in reverse" by the administration, its homes for the most part unplastered or abandoned wooden structures. More than 80 for every penny of the villagers act as day by day bets in the neighboring towns of Kremshore, Dreigam and Chadoora. A town of 150 family units, Lanura has a proficiency rate of under 35 for each penny as against the state normal of 67 for every penny. The town just has a center school and youngsters need to go to Khansahib, a town 8 km away, to concentrate facilitate. The closest wellbeing office, an essential wellbeing focus, is 3 km away.

However, it's the inconsistent power that inconveniences them the most, villagers say. Aside from the successive blackouts, each time power goes off, the mobile phone tower, which is without a battery go down, goes on the squint and the villagers battle to make telephone calls. The main road light in the town hasn't been working for as far back as four months.

Around 4 pm, Naseer Ahmad Thoker, a worker who is likewise a Class XII understudy, joins the little gathering of men outside Dar's shop who are currently talking cash and their freshly discovered "cashless" status.

"Cashless? It is safe to say that they are stating we should manage with even less cash? I am a worker and just acquire around Rs 200 a day. What will I do with things like Paytm? I require money to encourage my family and I require it in my grasp toward the end of consistently. What will I do with cash in my record?" he inquires.

The town, with a populace of around 1,500, has just six shops — a scientist and five food merchants. None of the retailers has a card machine or has ever utilized Net saving money. Just a single of them — Firdous Ahmad, who runs the restorative store in Laruna — has known about Paytm.

Ahmad says he was instructed how to utilize Paytm about a fortnight prior however he utilizes it just to revive his own prepaid cellphones. This Thursday, precisely a week after the town was pronounced "cashless", practically every exchange in Lanura's six shops is either in real money or using a credit card.

"What is this 'cashless'? We have been listening to this word for as far back as week yet what does this even mean?" snaps food merchant Dar. "I get money for what I offer and on the off chance that some person doesn't have money, I offer it to him on layaway and they pay me toward the end of the month. It's dependably been that way. Why are they attempting to change things now? For what?"

Villager Ghulam Nabi Najar, a resigned Armyman who has put in quite a long while in Pune and came back to Lanura just a couple of years prior, says, "In Pune, I have seen individuals utilizing cards to make installments however I have never done it without anyone else's help. I don't know how to do it. We are poor villagers and a large portion of us don't have advanced mobile phones".

In spite of the fact that every one of the villagers have financial balances, Lanura doesn't have a bank or an ATM; the closest one is at the J&K Bank office in Kremshore, 3 km from the town.

Riyaz Ahmad Sheik, 28, from Lanura, functions as a monitor at the ATM in Kremshore. "This 'cashless town' is a joke," he says, remaining with the gathering outside Dar's shop. "Numerous villagers don't know how to utilize an ATM card. They offer it to me and approach me to pull back cash for them."

Riyaz's name figures in the rundown of individuals from Lanura who have been prepared to show villagers in the utilization of innovation for cashless exchanges.

The venture to prepare individuals in electronic installments was propelled recently by the Common Services Center (CSC) of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The preparation is bestowed by Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLES) partnered to CSCS. The two CSC mentors at Lanura have submitted to the District Informatics Officer in Budgam a rundown of 150 individuals in Lanura who have apparently been "prepared".

Waseem Manzoor, a Class VI understudy, additionally figures on this rundown. "I don't know anything about this preparation. I can just utilize the PDA to make calls, nothing more," he says.

Mohammad Yasin Thoker, a 35-year-old occupant of Lanura, is one of the two CSC coaches from the town. "We have prepared around 150 villagers in electronic installment frameworks, one from every family," he guarantees. Whenever inquired as to whether he could recognize the general population he prepared, he says, "None of the general population we prepared is in town today."

The hurry to proclaim towns as "cashless" began after the Center declared the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8. While demonetisation hasn't influenced Lanura much — "we didn't have much money in any case," says food merchant Dar — the villagers say they have now been announced "cashless" to spare the Central government's picture.

"We are ignorant individuals. The legislature can do what it needs yet why drag us into it? We are currently the aim of jokes. Individuals come here, glance around, giggle at us and say 'This town is cashless?'."

Budgam Deputy Commissioner Mir Altaf Ahmad concedes that Lanura is a long way from cashless. "I don't see how they can do this," he says. "They (villagers) don't know how to utilize ATM cards and they are looking at going cashless. I will investigate it and enquire how it (official discharge) completed."

So what incited the police to at last act? On December 6, in view of a tip-off, we recouped a gold coin from Jagdish Banjara, a 32-year-old utensil-vender from Janakipura. Banjara had sold the cointobalramsoni,ajeweller,forrs1.8 lakh.wealsoseizedasecondcoinfrom Soni. With his help, we figured out how to recover 10 more gold coins from local people.

We sent the initial two coins to the Jaipur branch of the Archeological Survey of India, which observed that they dated back to Samudragupta (335-380AD). To control the circumstance at the quarry, we forced Section 144 on December 5.

Be that as it may, what took the police so long to act? Prior, we didn't have tenable proof to propose that the coins were valuable. Be that as it may, on understanding the value of the coins, we made quick move. We have been requesting that individuals hand over the coins deliberately as they have a place with the administration.

What is the circumstance at the site now? Area 144 keeps on being forced. Five policemen, including a head constable, have been guarding the site. So far the villagers appear to collaborate and some of them have given back the coins.

What do you plan to do later on? In light of tip-offs and deliberate revelations, we have recovered 27 coins in this way. We are not certain of the quantity of coins that have been stolen. We have kept in touch with the ASI and anticipate that them will begin burrowing at the site soon.

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