Demonetisation has switched off Bhiwandi's power looms in 26 days

Karimullah Ansari at a power loom in Wanjarpetti The 65yearold is prepping for his daughterrsquos Dec 22 wedding but hasnrsquot been able to convert the currency PicsSameer MarkandeFor Suresh Kumar Mahato this is not how he had planned his ldquovacationrdquo ldquoWersquoll do something back home Some odd job now and thenrdquo says Mahato who estimates his age to be somewhere between 20 and 22 Having worked as a labourer at a power loom unit in Bhiwandirsquos Padma Nagar since 2004 starting when he may have been 10 or younger every journey back home to Bettiah in the West Champaran district of Bihar meant shopping for clothes soaps and hair oil to gift the children in his family This time he has managed to buy sweets but with great difficulty Theyrsquoll understand hersquos sure considering that demonetisation has cost him his jobAlso read Security guards at ATMs and banks bear the brunt of demonetisationHanuman Tekdi the redlight district of Bhiwandi has also suffered Clientele has dropped and services are only being offered for Rs 500rsquos worthIt is Wednesday evening when Mahato and his friends Manoj Kumar Mandal and Sambhu Kumar Das come for their last dinner at a bhissi canteen they have frequented for several years Mandal says ldquoOf the 17 people who lived in our room we are the last few who remain The others have left Bhiwandi for their hometownsrdquo On Thursday evening the trio accompanied by 10 others would have taken the Kushinagar Express departing at 1045 pm from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus with a bag each that contains all ndash yes all ndash their belongingsOn November 30 Mohamed Ansari 63 finished 11 years at this power loom unit in Bhiwandi With 40 years of experience in the industry as a labourer the recent demonetisation announcement has hit him badly Unlike Ansari several other labourers are leaving the town which hosts 8 lakh out of the nationrsquos 21 lakh power loomsAnd they are not the first bunch to do so In the last fortnight Bhiwandi ndash dubbed the ldquoManchester of Indiardquo where reports estimate that 90 per cent of the population is connected to the power loom industry ndash has seen a mass exodus of labourers The reasons vary but are all connected to the demonetisation announcement of November 8 which made R500 and R1000 currency bills invalid as legal tender With labourers waiting to take the next train home to Bihar or Uttar Pradesh the power loom units in Bhiwandi from where a third of the textile that the country wears is manufactured now either run on limited manpower or have come to a standstillAlso read Demonetisation Wholesale veggie prices fall in cities retail rates largely unaffectedAshraf Ansari 30 is one of the last of two labourers to stay back at the power loom unit he works at His reasonacircAcircu00c2u0080Acircu00c2u0088he got paid in Rs 100 rather than in Rs 500 notes With no bank account to fall back on cash is the only hope for labourers like him in BhiwandiFor master and workerEn route to the office of advocate Rasheed Tahir Momin an exMLA and coowner of 400 power loom units in Bhiwandi nationalised bank branches bear testimony to the situation It is 22 days since Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement The bank shutters are down even while they are fully functional with locals thumping away asking to be let in The lines snake around street corners with the police on crowd control duty On November 13 the police lathicharged customers at the State Bank of India branch to ldquoavoid a stampederdquoldquoIf I close the bhissi now then it means it is closed foreverrdquo says Mohamed Husain who runs a bhissi canteen in JP Nagar A daily clientele of 70 labourers per meal is now down to half that much He manages by spending his Rs 500 notes on vegetablesWhile parts of Mumbai see shorter queues at ATMs and banks now that is not the case at Bhiwandi Here it is still Day One since demonetisationMomin revels in Bhiwandirsquos history ndash an old town of Maharashtrian and Konkani Muslims which became a nagar palika as early as 1859 The Mumbai Agra National Highway also meant greater connectivity for the town Reports state that out of the nationrsquos 21 lakh power looms Bhiwandi hosts eight lakh there may be more as the industry sees illegal units and employment and is second to Surat in production The first textile loom in Bhiwandi was set up in 1927 by Khan Saheb Samad Seth now a local legend best recalled for his aphorism ldquoSell gold and buy ironrdquoPower loom seths Muzammil Momin and Rehan Momin show tokens and cheques from the dayrsquos wait outside two banks They were told to come the next day to change and withdraw Rs 4000 and Rs 2000 respectively They state that unless they get change they will not be able to pay their labourersMomin is one of those who lives by that saying but his power loom units which are usually run by 15 labourers each now makes do with two ldquoHere we manufacture Indonesia cloth made of texturised yarn also known as polyester oriented yarn We used to make 2500 metres a day from each unit Now we manage 800 metresrdquo he saysFurqan Bubere who owns 450 power looms in the Wanjarpetti area in Bhiwandi has a similar tale to tell Where there used to be 25000 metres produced each day now itrsquos just 10000 metres ldquoThese looms used to run 24 hours but most are shut all night nowrdquo he says Of his 85 labourers more than half have leftIt is a hard time observes Momin for the industry which has already taken a hit from cloth that gets manufactured for cheaper in Sri Lanka China and Malaysia ldquoTheir readymade cloth costs the same as our kachcha kapusrdquo he says For a centre that grew as the mills of Girgaum fell in the 1980s the times are perilousNeed for changeAt one of Mominrsquos units which has 12 power looms 30yearold Ashraf Ansari is the last of the two labourers who have stayed back Every month Ansari is paid Rs 10000 from which he pays Rs 400 as the rent for a room a 100 sq ft space that he shared with nine others and Rs 1800 for the bhissi The rest is sent home after he makes do with a little for paan and chai As the dusty power looms clatter and clang to bring out immaculate white polyester Ansari says that the only reason he stayed back is because he got paid in Rs 100 notes instead of Rs 500 and Rs 1000Ansarirsquos peers realised that the best way to change currency would be to go back home where some have bank accounts More importantly it means not living Bhiwandirsquos expensive life mdash where they have to shell out rent and bhissi charges mdash while they are short on useable currency ldquoI was home at Bhagalpur in Bihar for Eid alAdha holidays I had come to Mumbai on the day that the cancellation of notes was announced We saw it on TV at the hotel nearbyrdquo he says with utterly no clue about the purpose of demonetisationItrsquos a similar story at Wanjarpettirsquos units where cotton cloth is manufactured Karimullah Ansari a bearded man with ageing eyes had made preparations for his daughterrsquos wedding The 65yearoldrsquos troubles began since demonetisation he had booked a hall and a cook for the wedding ldquoThe seth doesnrsquot have enough money to pay us in time and in change All my savings in cash had to be changed as well So I went to the bank with my Aadhaar card my election card and the wedding card as proofrdquo he explains The bank with little cash in its coffers hasnrsquot been able to oblige And about demonetisation ldquoThey say itrsquos to do away with black money But the netas are the ones who have black money and do you see them standing in lines like usrdquo he saysAnother labourer Abdul Gaffar Ansari 46 who works in the adjacent power loom unit has been standing in bank queues every other day Unfortunately a day spent in the queue means a day away from work As we chat with the labourers news reaches us that there has been yet another lathi charge on people queuing up at a cooperative bank Rumour has it that a labourerrsquos arm was fractured in the scuffle but he was advised by friends not to register a complaintBubere says that he has tried but failed ldquoWe tried teaching labourers to open accounts but we canrsquot force them to Because of the apparent hassle they could lose interest in the jobrdquo he saysMeanwhile on Saturday Momin hosted a camp along with the textile joint secretary Madhukumar Reddy other members from the textile commissionerrsquos office and executives from Union Bank Bank of India and Maharashtra Bank to help labourers open bank accounts He says that the paperwork for 850 labourers has been initiated 2000 were turned away for lack of time ldquoIt will take another week or so for these accounts to be openedrdquo he says He recalls how members from the textile commission had come earlier to explain mobile banking to the labourers ldquoThey donrsquot have smartphones and the ones that do have Android phones are charged for netbanking services How can they spare these additional chargesrdquoThe pall that looms over Bhiwandi recall both seths and labourers is reminiscent of the times when in 2003 the central excise department office introduced central valueadded tax As power loom owners were asked to register show documents and bills for every stage of production and file quarterly returns several units chose to shut down instead The ten per cent excise duty levied on grey cloth as unfinished fabric is called here was something the units just couldnrsquot afford It was reported that 5 lakh workers left Bhiwandi that year to return to UP Bihar and RajasthanCollapse of an ecosystemThe power loom industry runs on a system of advances and loans For instance yarn is purchased with advances and paid in full when profits are made Mominrsquos associate says ldquoThe whole ecosystem of power looms in Bhiwandi has collapsed We are losing money both at the production and sale endsrdquoFor power loom owners the cash crunch has hit sales They say that while the rate of cloth ndash which can be anywhere between Rs 10 to Rs 150 depending on the quality ndash has remained the same there are fewer buyers in centers such as Surat and Ahmedabad Bubere says ldquoNew deals with textile manufacturers are not happening and we have started storing goods The only way we are able to sell cloth is by accepting old notes of R500 and R1000 ndash which is likely to be black moneyrdquoBut the shake in the system is felt the most at the local bhissi For the labourers the bhissi is more than just two hot meals a day It is a communal space a coming together of others like them And in between shifts that can range anywhere between 8 to 24 hours the bhissi is all that comes between them working at the power loom and then bunking at their roomsWhen a bhissi stops functioning labourers are affected too says Momin Where will they go and eat ldquoThey cannot afford a restaurant daily A bhissi will only charge them about Rs 800Rs 1000 for a monthrdquo he says The closing down of bhissis across Bhiwandi ndash again due to demonetisation ndash has sent labourers packing back to their homes if they canrsquot find a place to eat and subsist then the next best option is home not a restaurant Some like Mohamed Husain in JP Nagar keep their bhissi running though clientele has been halved Husain used to serve 70 labourers now 35 turn up While there is a board that warns about how meals on credit will not be served Husain has let this slip in the last two weeks ldquoSeveral labourers have gone back home without paying up But if I close the bhissi now then it means it is closed foreverrdquo he says as he piles up rice and egg on a plate The way he has managed to deal with Rs 500 notes He buys vegetables and grocery worth Rs 400 using a Rs 500 note He doesnrsquot receive the remainder Rs 100Over at Hanuman Tekdi where Mahato and his friends have come for their last dinner the bhissi owner ndash also named Karimullah Ansari like several others in Bhiwandi ndash makes phulkas on coal fire and says that he now makes 300 rotis per day instead of 500 ldquoThe last two weeks over dinner we have been talking about if this cancellation of notes is a good thing or a bad thingrdquo says Mahato When we ask them to show us their phones we see that they are as basic as they can get ndash a Lava and strangely one called Provogue ldquoWe donrsquot keep expensive smartphones with us ever even if we could save up and afford them The job is such that we are either sleeping or manning the looms someone will easily flick these phonesrdquo he saysHanuman Tekdi is infamous for five intersecting lanes which function as a redlight area The sex workers here say that the demonetisation and the diminishing labourer population has affected them Gauri name changed who has been a sex worker there for the last 25 years says that the only way they have been able to counter demonetisation is to tell customers that they either get an evening worth R500 or not at all Rupees two hundred what they usually charge their clients will just not be feasible anymore