Govt.acts on collective citizen ask of changing currency to address accumulated black money

The Government of India yesterday evening announced that it was moving the 500 and 1000 rupee notes from circulation effective today and they may be exchanged from post offices and banks starting Nov 10th till Dec 30th, 2016.

To the members of LocalCircles, India's leading community social media network this was a wish come true as the conversation on addressing domestic black money and corruption were building up since the last week of October.

There were repeated suggestions from citizens on eliminating the 500 and 1000 rupee notes as well as changing their colour. LocalCircles, earlier this week released the India Corruption Poll 2016 covering the state of corruption across India with detailed local and national polls outlining what citizens felt about corruption.

In this survey of 15,000+ citizens across 56 cities, 42 percent admitted paying a bribe last year. At the same time, 68 percent felt that India will see a significant reduction in corruption in the next five years.

Based on the chatter on the network, LocalCircles also conducted a poll to address the domestic black money and asked if the citizens supported changing the color of 500 and 1000 rupee notes. 78 percent citizens supported the scheme, 7% did not support and 15% said that they were unsure. Approximately 11,000 citizens participated in the poll. As a follow on, citizens were asked how such a scheme should be implemented and various meaningful inputs were suggested.

Some of the inputs were rolling out such a scheme suddenly, setting up a mechanism for notes exchange so accounted money can be deposited in the bank as well as creating a nation building account at banks where people with black money can deposit it anonymously. It was also proposed by the community that time till Dec 31st, 2016 should be given to deposit cash in the bank and the new notes should be introduced only after that.

In the early afternoon of Nov 8th, 2016, the poll was introduced on twitter to invite broader citizenry participation beyond LocalCircles members. To the positive surprise of LocalCircles and all the citizens who participated in the poll and discussions, it was heartening to see the Prime Minister announce this scheme via a special 8 pm announcement. The LocalCircles community whole heartedly appreciates how swiftly the Government has moved with this scheme and will continue to give its pulse checks and on ground feedback as the implementation proceeds forward.