When India's Cash Disappeared

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2019

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When India suddenly got rid of most of its cash, in an effort to end corruption and modernize its economy, chaos ensued. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:07.0	Hey, just a quick note.
0:08.5	Today's show is about India's massive experiment to get rid of cash.
0:12.6	It originally aired in 2017 and we've got an update for you at the end, so stay tuned.
0:18.9	On November 8th at 10pm, the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, got on TV and out of nowhere
0:25.1	said, all of the money in your wallet, it is totally worthless starting now.
0:31.1	We have decided that the 500 rupee and 1000 rupee currency notes presently in use will no longer
0:43.6	be legal tender from midnight to night.
0:48.6	500 and 1000 rupee notes, that's about 85% of the cash in India.
0:54.7	The 500 and 1000 rupee notes hoarded by anti-national and anti-social elements will become
1:04.5	just worthless piece of paper.
1:10.0	Worthless pieces of paper.
1:12.3	Imagine that.
1:14.0	Imagine President Trump gets on TV and says all of the 10, 20, 50 and 100 dollar bills
1:18.7	in your wallet, they're not worth anything anymore.
1:21.3	In India's not like the US where most people have credit cards and debit cards, 90% of business
1:26.2	transactions in India happen in cash.
1:29.9	And a lot of that cash is to use Modi's term, black money.
1:34.0	Black money is basically any money that is outside of the tax system.
1:37.9	It's become kind of a catch all phrase for corruption in India.
1:41.6	Modi said, you have one month to take your cash to the bank and exchange it for these
1:46.1	new bills that we have just minted.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.