Cash is back:Jolt of currency crunch not enough to digitise India

Millions of small traders who started making and accepting online payments have gone back to cash

Indians love the feel of cold hard cash, demonetisation or not. A blanket ban on old notes, tiresome long queues outside ATMs, fights with bank tellers and other patrons — nothing has managed to come in the way of people and their crisp wads of cash. Going back to old habits, the surge in digital transactions which sustained for a little over two months is fast fading away, as cash is back with a vengeance.

Realising soon that making people go cashless was next to impossible, the government changed its rhetoric to “less-cash”, and has since pushed every type of