With the fast approaching December 30th deadline for disposing of old 500- and 1,000-rupee notes that were outlawed on November 8, many business sectors in India continue to wheel, deal and reel from the central government demonetization policy which has voided approximately 86% of the nation’s paper currency. But it seems that exporters of frozen seafood and other fishery products are not among them.
“Since demonetization, seafood exporters have been paying the shrimp farm owners and fish traders through bank cheque, drafts and digital payments.
A large number of fish and prawn traders are also readily accepting the cashless method as it has reduced the chances of theft,” reported The New Indian Express.
Prior to the recall of large denomination bills and the severe crimp it put on money remaining in circulation, an estimated 98% of all Indian business transactions in volume and 68% in value were made with cash. In the fish and seafood sector, the value is said to have been even higher.
“As the transaction is now made through digital mode, the cash remains safe in our bank accounts. Besides, we would not face any problem from the income tax authorities in future as all the transactions are now recorded,” stated Rudra Prasan Hota, general secretary of the Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) in the Odisha region.
Shrimp accounts for more than 80% of seafood exports from the state, which has 485 kilometers (301 miles) of coastline along the Bay of Bengal on its east. Odisha generated approximately 17% of India’s seafood export value last year.
“Our target is to export 25,000 metric tons of seafood from the state at the cost of Rs 2,000 crore in 2016-17,” added Hota. “Demonetization has not stopped us from exporting seafood.”
The Government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi triggered demonetization almost two months ago to flush out undeclared and untaxed wealth or “black” money from the nation’s underground economy.
According to a report in The Economist, “Officials had predicted that perhaps 20% of the pre-ban cash would not be deposited in banks, for fear of disclosure to the taxman. Yet within three weeks of the demonetization…about two-thirds of the money had already found its way into ‘white’ channels.”
