50 paisa loot: Safeguarding Indian sovereignty
A toll road connects Gurgaon and Faridabad in Haryana. It is a beautiful road that meanders across the Aravalli hills, going up and down, following the lie of the land. On both sides of the road, leaving aside a few multi-crore housing development projects, scrub trees and rocks stretch as far as the eye can see. But this is a path that I tread with trepidation. It used to be two lanes and now it is four-laned and there are many trucks transporting rocks to the crusher zone in the vicinity, but that is not what scares me. The length of the road is 33.10 km and cars are allowed to zip across its smooth tarmac, at speeds up to 80kmph... and I am neither scared of the speed nor the distance.
What scares me, of using the road, is the sceptre of being deemed unpatriotic, by an involuntary act of becoming the owner of an object made of Ferratic Stainless Steel weighing 3.7 grams, round in shape and 22 mm in diameter - popularly known as the 50 paisa coin.
In 2011, while doing away with the 25 paisa coin, the Reserve Bank of India confirmed that the 50 paisa coin would remain legal tender. That status has still not changed and it simplified the workings of easy economic problems. Millions of undemanding people no longer have to add three or four coins to make a full rupee, from 2011 onwards the maximum number of coins, which go into a rupee got restricted to two. In the case of the Gurgaon-Faridabad Toll Road, that became operational a year later, it meant an opportunity to give something back to the country, while earning an extra profit of a rupee every time two cars wanted a return journey ticket.
That is also why, every time I use the road for a to and fro journey, the jitters hit me. The rate for the return ticket is one and half times the rate of a single journey. That works out to Rs 22.50 return and since no sane urban Indian carries a 50 paisa coin anymore, I always offer Rs 23 or more for my two-way journey.
I have noticed that under no provocation, do the booth operators agree to accept Rs 22, but weak hearted that I am, I get scared of the mere probability of the toll booth operator giving me a 50 paisa coin back, as change.
It has not happened yet but if it does, I would immediately be rendered a spanner in the workings of the Indian economy. In the worst of my fears, festers a small 50 paisa coin, with the potential of labelling me a traitor to the cause of "Achhe Din". But, thankfully, the toll company operators have been very well trained and they have been sensitised, in how not to upset the Indian economy, by returning 50 paisa in change to evil-minded unpatriotic and stingy car drivers, challenging the smooth functioning of the Indian financial system.
GF Toll Road Private Ltd, the Reliance Infrastructure subsidiary, that started collecting toll from July 2012, knows what harm it would do the economy to return a 50 paisa coin. There may well be 14.78 billion 50 paisa coins in circulation, as of March 31, 2013, but the RBI says that demand far outstrips supply. In 2012-13, the RBI needed 50 million new 50 paisa coins but only six million could be minted. In the 80s, faced with a similar shortage, the RBI had to outsource the minting of coins to UK’s Royal Mint, the Royal Canadian Mint and to the South Korean Mint.
The GF Toll Road Company understands the problems of the Indian economy, it empathises with the RBI’s dilemma and it is doing its best to reduce circulation of 50 paisa coins. India does not want foreign mints to mint Indian coins and so the GF Toll Road Pvt Ltd is doing its patriotic bit for the sake of India and all Indians everywhere, NRIs and PIOs included, because what happens to the economy impacts every Indian across the globe.
Imagine hundreds of cars every day asking for 50 paisa coins in change… multiply that by 30 days a month, 365 days a year. Some foolish people call it "illegal profit" but then not everyone has the understanding of the intricacies of how economies and patriotism works… do they?
Economists and RBI officers can go to sleep in peace at night, knowing that on this toll road, no 50 paisa coin will be circulated. Every car short-changed, safeguards India’s prestige, as a sovereign nation. I drive on the road thinking, that as long as there are enterprises like the GF Toll Road and as long as there are dauntless toll booth operators who refuse, under any circumstances, to part with a single 50 paisa coin, India will continue to stand tall in the comity of respectable nations.
What terrifies me is that someday, some misguided law abiding, upright and honest toll booth operator might want to hand me back a 50 paisa coin in change… and the Indian economy would come crashing down on me.