When the Octroi got abolished in my town it left scores of young people out of work. With the advent of mobile phones scores of families got affected as all the PCOs of the town were closed. When the ATMs and the computers got introduced in the banks of Jagraon the staff of the banks got reduced to one fourth. This, probably, affected fifty families even if we assume that each bank in the town shunted three clerks. Then came the Mall called Easyday, which hit hard the grocery stores of the town. Roughly this mall must have caused the closure of twelve grocery stores. The construction workers lost work as the construction work slowed down due to the scarcity of sand and gravel. Now let us talk about the watch makers of the town. As the watches eloped from the wrists of the people due to mobile phones, all the shops dealing with watches were pushed to the tight corners. When the personal computers were becoming popular a few people invested their time and money dealing with computers and its accessaries. But when smart phones started doing almost all what a PC could do, it hit these computer dealers on the nose. Now photographers were also pushed to the brink as most phones could shoot professional level pictures and videos. Since last year payment via Debit card has been allowed on the internet. Due to this buying things online has become common. This has affected the shops that deal in readymade clothes, shoes,kithchen ware, electronic items etc. It is obvious that when the trade activities reduce the state revenue also drops. That forces the government to tax its citizens harder in order to pay the salaries to its staff. That is exactly what the Punjab Government did. Property tax and house tax were introduced. Many industrialists fled due to the harsh tax policies introduced by the Akali-BJP government. That further aggravated the problem. Since the energy of the people in general and youth in paticular is not channelised the problems of drug abuse, crime, religious fundamentalism,etc is bound to witness a surge. The positive thing we can embark upon is that the people of my town are capable of adjusting to any type of situation how so ever grim it might be. The migration has increased manifold. The explosive situation is less dangerous due to the IELTS window that gives the youth a chance to sneak out of the country. Nevertheless the thing that the people of the town have started hating bitterly is the corruption and the inefficiency amongst the government employees. It is needless to say that the corrupt leaders would be thrown out of the political arena by the people very soon. It is a writng on the wall.
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