Note ban impact: Noida’s richie-rich use daily wage labourers to ‘whiten’ their black money

Encumbered with worthless pieces of paper, the ordinary Indians are finding it tough to fulfill their basic essential needs. Patience is rapidly wearing out. The daily waged labourers are fighting hard to bear with these conditions. The domestic as well as commercial construction work has dropped drastically which has made such people finding it difficult to earn for even food. Many people don’t even have bank accounts which has pushed them towards difficulties in exchanging the abolished notes. They are now opting various other ways to survive these conditions and earn their livelihood somehow.    

Noida is a hub for labourers with several construction sites running all through. Labourers migrate from different parts of the country to this city in search of work. The builders and contractors hire them on daily wages. 

Those daily wages are the source of food, cloth and shelter to them. These days when there are less construction activities going around the city, these people are now ready to do anything for survival. The black money holders are now targeting them to convert their money into white while others are using them to stand in queues for hours on their behalf.  

Noida’s labour chowk and areas near Sector 4 are the places where these poor labourers group together every morning. Sunil, one of the labourers, standing at labour chowk said: “The conditions have gone way difficult for us to survive. We somehow manage to earn for our livelihood. People come and offer us some money to get their old currency converted into new notes. This price ranges from Rs 300 to Rs 1,000. We know that this is illegal but our helpless condition is forcing us to do so.” 

Ramesh, a labour contractor from Noida’s labour chowk adds: “The activity of converting black to white with the help of these labourers is active from the very next day after the old notes were  banned.”

He further said: “Daily 50 to 60 labourers are hired from labour chowk for this illicit act. People who don’t have time to stand in queues and wait for hours hire them on their daily wages and make them stand in the queue on their behalf. Those people are then informed over phone as their number reach the end and they then join queues replacing the labourers.” 

They need liquid cash to run their lives and in such difficult circumstances they are finding this unlawful act, a survival move.