Demonetisation impact: Vendors & customers wait for more money and machh in Kolkata's fish markets

What’s a Bengali lunch without rohu flaunting itself in the redness of a kalia or crescents of prawns gilded in the pale-gold of a malai curry, or the bhetki peeping from the folds of a banana leaf? And yet many Bengalis have to confine these to feverish pescatarian fantasies at noontime.
Tapas Mukherjee, a businessman from South Kolkata, frequents the fish market on Bondel Road near his home in Ballygunge at least twice a week. He would pick up different varieties of fish — from rohu or rui, a Bengali staple, that is around Rs200 a kilo to tiger prawns that cost around Rs500 a kilo — but “the fish markets in Kolkata are now downbeat”, he says. “Prices and supplies have fallen. Demonetisation has led to a strange situation where both buyers and sellers are hit,” he says.

The fish markets of Kolkata have not been the same since the Centre announced demonetisation on November 8. It is the season of festivals and festivities, but the fish markets — where vendors sit on raised platforms, surrounded by scales and heaps of fish and prawns — have lost the usual thrum of crowds and the rising crescendo of haggling. Ramkrishna Das, who sells freshwater fish and seafood, has a permanent slot at the Lake Gardens Supermarket in South Kolkata. His day usually begins at 4 am, when he takes a train to the wholesale market at Howrah, to procure fish from large distributors. He hurries back to his market before 7 am by when buyers would start trickling in — fish is a big part of the average Bengali household’s daily meals.

But in November sales were down by around 40%. Things are now slowly picking up, with more Rs500 notes in circulation. “The note ban has hit small sellers like us hard,” says Das. “We are in the market during banking hours and so cannot access our accounts. The wholesalers will accept only cash payment and our customers have been giving us high denomination notes of Rs2,000.” Das and a few fish sellers are trying to get around the problem — when someone buys small quantities of fish from a few of them, they ask the customer to settle the bill together so that each of them doesn’t have to fumble for balance. They are also selling fish on credit to regulars.

Even the big fish are worried. At the wholesale market in Howrah, Adil Irfan of MI Fish Company is counting the cartons — and there aren’t many to count. From five to seven cartons a day — each containing around 60 kg of seafood — sales are down to one or two cartons. “Our products are perishable and have a very short shelf life. We have to wrap up our deals on a daily basis. It is very difficult for me to send my staff to the bank to stand in long queues to withdraw cash, so I would get my payments in cash rather than in cheques,” he says.

Netai Das, who has a fish stall at a market in Jadavpur, says his daily sales, which were around Rs20,000-25,000, are down by almost 80%. But he is hoping that as the liquidity crisis slowly eases, things will improve. “I source fish from multiple suppliers who don’t accept anything other than cash payment,” he says. Small sellers are, not surprisingly, the worst hit. Hiru Halder sells fish on a pavement near Baghajatin market in south Kolkata. On good days and weekends, his sales used to touch Rs2,000; now it is less than Rs500. Halder, who has to support his wife, mother and son, has no other job and has been buying fish on credit. He now desperately hopes that the cash situation will ease off.

Fins are Down

Things are not any better elsewhere in the country. At the fish market in Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park, none of the vendors has switched to mobile wallets or any other mode of electronic transaction. Says Dev Bijoli, who runs a fish shop at CR Park’s busy Market 2: “In Delhi, people easily switch to vegetarian alternatives. Many people are staying away from the market because of the shortage of notes. We have to source our supplies from Ghazipur mandi early in the morning and hence don’t have time to take out money from the bank.”

Even in the seafood haven of Goa, the spirits are low. SL Rathore, who sells fish in Porvorim and other places in north Goa for the last 15 years, is worried. “My daily sales have dropped from Rs 7,000 to less than Rs2,500. People have stopped eating fish! Many customers are buying on credit, promising to pay later when they have cash,” says Rathore, who sources fish from a wholesale market at Margao and delivers at homes.

Siddhartha Chatterjee, founder of popular Bengali restaurant chain Bhojohori Manna, didn’t really think that his new venture Machhli Baba, an upscale retail outlet for fish in Kolkata, would receive so much traction within a few months of its launch. “We started this venture as a backward integration project for our restaurants which serve a lot of fish delicacies. Now, demonetisation and the currency crisis have provided a big fillip for our store in south Kolkata where people can buy different varieties of fish and pay with plastic,” says Chatterjee. A second store has now been opened in the Salt Lake area for young professionals who need their fix of fish without having to go through messy markets.

Those who have facilities for e-transactions are having a field day. Says Shan Kadavil, founder of Bengaluru-based ecommerce startup Freshtohome, which delivers fresh fish and meat to consumers in Bengaluru, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi: “Our customers have not been affected by demonetisation. We have seen a 30% uptick in sales. But fishermen in Kerala from whom we source fish have been badly hit because of the cash crunch since they can’t procure diesel for their fishing vessels.” The company, which was launched in August 2015, sells over 6 tonnes of fresh produce daily and plans to launch operations in Mumbai soon. Meanwhile, fish vendors are waiting for more cash and much machh (fish).