This is how demonetised currency is helping rebuilding India again

Last year, India spent a lot of time in queues to either get some cash from ATMs or to submit their then-defunct ₹500 and ₹1000 notes.

Demonetisation stirred up the shit-bowl of Indian economics and now that the dust has settled, we’re still learning a lot about this.

We’ve seen a lot of data about the issue. Some back this controversial move, and some oppose them.

People are now discussing the effects of this bold move, while some of us are still wondering what happened to the notes that were submitted to these banks.

A Kerala based startup, Western Indian Plywood Ltd., has been converting these now-invalid notes into hard boards since November. These hard boards are going to be used in the 2019 South African polls.

In an interview with The News Minute, the company’s Marketing Head P Mehboob said: “around 800 tonnes of demonetised currency was received by the company from the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) regional office in Thiruvananthapuram.”

“After the currency notes came to the RBI, they were shredded and sent to us because we have the machinery to pulp these notes, which are of high quality. We manufacture hard and soft boards using wood pulp. Once we received the shredded notes, somewhere between 5% to 15% of the pulped currency is added to the wood pulp in order to make the boards. We use the technique of thermomechanical pulping to pulp high-quality currency”, he added.

The company has reportedly paid a minuscule sum of ₹200 for a tonne of these invalid notes.

Considering how Indians rarely care about recycling, climate change and minimising our dependence on natural resources, it’s amazing how this Kannur-based startup has managed to do so much for us.