Demonetisation fallout – husbands irate at wives’ secret thrift

Apart from causing snaking queues at banks and ATMs, the government's demonetisation of high-denomination notes had an unexpected adverse fallout – it led to a spike in domestic violence, reports The Indian Express.

The complaints at the country's first One Stop Crisis Centre (OSCC) in Bhopal have revealed some of these cases.

Sarika Sinha, regional director of Action Aid, an NGO that runs the OSCC "Gauravi", told the newspaper that overnight wives became criminals in the eyes of their husbands when they discovered that they were saving money without their knowledge.

In one of the cases, a 27-year-old woman was reportedly forced to leave home with her seven children after he husband found out that she had Rs 4,500 with her, that he was not aware of earlier.

"Husbands threatened their wives, beat them and warned them of consequences like jail terms because they felt a loss of control over their wives," Sinha said.

Sinha runs the NGO in collaboration with the Public Health and Family Welfare department of the Madhya Pradesh government.

While the toll-free crisis number usually receives about 500 calls every month - after the announcement, the calls increased to 1,200 in the month of November. 50 per cent of these crisis calls were from women who faced violence due to demonetisation-related discord, reported The Indian Express.

And it wasn't just Madhya Pradesh. In West Bengal's Howrah district, an angry husband was arrested after his wife fell from the 10th floor of their apartment. It was alleged that they had an angry exchange after she returned home empty-handed from an ATM.