FOR the Nuxalbari Estate in the lush hills of India’s north-east, relief came in the nick of time. With winter pruning of its tea plantations at hand, 600 workers were threatening to strike. They could scarcely be blamed: the estate had not paid them in mid-November and now owed another fortnight’s wages. This was not for lack of funds. Nuxalbari’s account showed a healthy balance. But day after day its bank repeated the same refrain: yes, the government says it has a plan to help tea estates, but our local branch has no rupees. At his wits’ end, the estate manager marched into the branch, along with bosses of trade unions and a tea planters’ group, even as Nuxalbari’s owners barraged the bank’s headquarters with pleas. The bank at last relented, dispatching a courier weighted with sacks of cash from its vault on a night flight from Kolkata. The workers got their money in the morning.
Nuxalbari is lucky. Its owners enjoy sound finances and influence. As India enters its fourth week since Narendra Modi, the prime minister, abruptly voided 86% of the country’s paper currency, many of its 1.3bn people have had no such luck. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the central...Continue reading
from Asia http://ift.tt/2gb3dd3
EmoticonEmoticon