Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move has affected people from all walks of life, including the Indian soldiers as they are deployed in remote areas and finding it difficult to exchange or deposit the scrapped notes.
Consequently, the Indian Army is planning to request the government to allow more time to soldiers to deposit and exchange ₹ 500 and ₹ 1,000 currency notes at banks beyond the deadline of December 31.
Notably, a large number of soldiers are deployed in remote areas like Siachen and Line of Control. They have a cash amount of nearly Rs 30,000-40,000 kept with their families, living in villages for either marriage of their relatives or construction of house.
“Many of them don’t have a family member who can go to the bank and get the money exchanged or deposited. So, we are planning to request the government if they can be given some relaxation in the deadline for depositing or exchanging old notes,” said a senior Army source to Mail Today.
Since the situation along the LoC and international borders are tensed, the force cannot afford to send soldiers on leave just for a purpose of exchanging notes.
Post the September 18 Uri attacks, in which 19 of Indian soldiers were killed by Pakistani rangers, the state of affairs on the LoC is tensed. Thus, at many places, the leaves were cancelled as the soldiers were required to be on the front. At various places, soldiers did not even get time to get their notes exchanged at banks because of their deployment in the remote areas.
The Indian Army has a strength of approximately 1.3 million soldiers. These soldiers are deployed across the most hostile and remote terrain. So the bank relaxation will definitely help them.
“If we get a waiver, this will be a big relief for our troops as they can do their jobs without the worry of losing their hard-earned money in the drive,” a source said.
