Chhutta nahin hain, bhai!, say Mumbai's grocers or vegetable vendors

Team mid-day fanned out in the city, wondering if it could get lucky exchanging R500 or R1,000 notes at the grocer's or vegetable vendor's. While some refused to accept the notes, others did but were unable to return change, resorting to other methods to deal with the situation. While some made diary entries, others told customers to buy a few more items so that they did not have to return much change.

"Till last night, we were accepting R500 notes from customers. In fact, most of our customers last night, were giving us Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for groceries. Since I was at the shop, I was unaware of the sudden development until I reached home. Last night, I got around Rs 10,000 in Rs 500 notes. From today, we are not accepting the currency. I don't want to take any risk," said Shantiram Bhosale, owner of a grocery shop at Shivajinagar, Thane.

On a bill of more than Rs 500, Jayanti Gala, who provides milk to the Amboli area, had already refused five people who tried to pay with a Rs 500 note this morning. On one such transaction, Gala said, "I would have accepted the notes had the other suppliers accepted them too. My suppliers didn't take a single Rs 500 note from me. So, I'm stuck."

Mohan Lal Chirvi, who runs a kirana store in Andheri West, has a novel technique to deal with the situation. On a bill of Rs 520, he asked this reporter to either pay the full amount or deposit the entire Rs 1,000 at the shop and redeem the balance later. "You can keep the Rs 1,000 note with us if you don't have change. We have a certain set of regular customers. As we don't have too many Rs 100 notes, on a bill of more than Rs 500, we are accepting the R1,000 notes, but not returning change."

Uttam Kambhle, a vegetable vendor in Amboli, said "Generally, very few people buy veggies for more than R500. But, sometimes they do hand me R500 notes. Where will I go for change? For every transaction, I cannot run around asking people for money. I'm a little worried about how things will turn out in the next two days as banks and ATMs are closed."

Ramnivas Singh, a resident of Worli, said, "When I went to the local grocery store and gave them Rs 500 for cooking oil and milk, the shopkeeper accepted it but told me to buy more items in order for him to give me change. I was forced to buy small grocery items."

Some shopkeepers were also seen making diary entries against goods purchased by local residents, instead of collecting cash.