Suspending publication for three days Delivering a statement
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 21 2016 -

Demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes has inconvenienced the people. No arguments about it.

Whether this will blow over in the next 50 days or so still lies in the realm of speculation.

What however is clear is the sharp polarisation of views adopted by different political parties over the issue.

Expectedly the BJP has been staunchly defending the decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while others, notably Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Admi Party, Mamta Banerjee of the Trinamul Congress, Rahul Gandhi and P Chidambaram of the Congress, to name just a few, have picked holes in the decision of the Government.

Chief Minister O Ibobi, who is heading the Congress Government here in Manipur, has not been very vocal about the decision of the Centre, but it will be interesting to see how far the decision of the Prime Minister will impact on the upcoming Assembly polls.

And remember Assembly election here is scheduled in the early part of next year.

Despite the studied silence or refusal of the Chief Minister to openly speak out his mind on the issue, the decision of the Centre to demonetise the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes will actually be played to the hilt in the coming Assembly election.

Which way the voters will respond to the situation will be known only when the votes are cast, but then again there will be other issues which will also impact on the coming Assembly election, such as Sadar Hills, Jiribam, the territorial integrity of the State and obviously the three Bills which were passed in the Assembly on August 31 last year.

There is also the demand raised to include the Meeteis/Meiteis in the Scheduled Tribe list of the Constitution of India.

So issues will be there, but the interesting question is which issue will be the prime factor on which the voters will decide their choice, come next year.

At the moment, the decision of the Centre to demonetise the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes is definitely at the centre of almost everything.

This is perhaps best exemplified by the decision of the All Manipur Publishers’ Association to suspend publication of all the Imphal based newspapers on November 17, 18 and 19 which meant that people did not get their morning newspaper on November 18, 19 and 20.

For the record, the decision to suspend publication for three days was not in any way against the decision of the Centre to demonetise the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

It was rather a statement that the publishers are in a fix as the hawkers/distributors do not have smaller denomination notes and come with demonetised notes to buy the day’s paper and deliver it to the doorstep of the subscribers.

For those who are not well acquainted with the process of how the daily newspaper reach their doorstep everyday, a brief summation may be in line here.

It is the accepted practise for the distributors/hawkers to come to the distribution section of the different newspaper offices, buy the daily papers with instant cash and then deliver them to the readers.

The distributors/hawkers get a subsidy. For example a newspaper which has Rs 4.50 p as its selling price is bought by the distributors/hawkers at Rs 3 per piece with the Rs 1.50 p as their profit.

This is a practise which is probably in vogue only in Manipur or in some of the North East States unlike the metros and other parts of the country where cash transaction may no longer be in practise and payments are made through cheques and other means.

This could be one reason why newspaper has not been included in the sector where the demonetised notes may be used till November 24, such as in Government hospitals.