When India announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will cease to be legal tenders on November 8, the subcontinent woke up to a new reality. We too felt the ripples because our biggest trade is with India.

As recent as a few weeks ago, we had cases of bank employees playing with Rupee even as the country is just about stepping out from one of the serious cases of Rupee shortage in history. We will continue to face Rupee shortage because our economy is designed in such a way that we will always import and our trade balance could be negative. And when we have to launch so many developmental projects, things can be difficult. We have seen that in its nakedness entire.

The initiative the Indian Prime Minister took on that day should be a lesson for us. We too need a clean up in our systems.

Banks throughout India are now facing unprecedented number of people coming to surrender their hoarded money. Stampede is killing people. That’s the seriousness how people are biting into the economy of the country.

In the border town of Phuentsholing, banks are facing increasing number of people coming in to deposit hoarded Rupees. Whether our people had them or their friends from India are making them do it, lines to the counters are getting longer by the day.

It appears that we never had a Rupee crisis. This is indicative of some problems in the society and the way money is flowing. We too need to take some drastic actions. We need to question people and business entities who come to deposit millions of Rupees.

We are hearing that people from across the border are using Bhutanese to deposit their hoarded money for some commissions. How are we dealing with this problem? We must trace depositor’s source of income. More than that, we should gather courage to fight our own malice.

We need to clean up our systems too.