In the coming month, carpet makers send samples to fairs abroad from where they get their orders.
Just over a month into the Centre's note ban, owners and workers at India's most famous and prolific carpet industry in eastern Uttar Pradesh's Bhadohi-Mirzapur belt say their businesses have slowed down.
For 55-year-old Tanvir Hussain, the owner of Bhadohi's oldest carpet exporting firm with an annual turnover of Rs 12 crore, the biggest worry is this: in a month he needs to send samples to three big carpet fairs in Germany from where he gets a bulk of his order for the year.
It is now a race against time for Mr Hussain. So far, only two of the 11 samples are ready. He said, there is no cash in the system to pay contractors, who in turn need to pay the weavers. All these transactions are done in cash. "If we are lucky and manage to make all our samples, it will be okay or else I expect at least a 50 per cent fall in business next year," Mr Hussain told NDTV.
The districts of Bhadohi and Mirzapur in eastern UP have over 900 exporters with an annual turnover of over Rs 7,000 crore. The carpet industry here employs at least 15 lakh people as the industry is labour intensive.
Another big manufacturer, Abdul Ansari has switched over to cheque payments to keep his factory running. But Mr Ansari's employees like Mohd Nayeem, who has worked at his factory for 15 years, now faces the challenge of trying to encash the cheque of Rs 7,000 at a local Canara Bank.
Mr Nayeem doesn't know how to use an ATM card and the bank has a limited supply of cash. When asked about the government's vision for cashless transactions, he said: "The problem is I am illiterate and learning to use online payment will be a problem for me. But yes, if we are forced, I guess I will have to learn."
At the grass-root level, there are weavers like Vijay and Shyam Narayan, who work as daily wagers in small establishments that supply carpets to the bigger players. Both of them have joined a new unit because the earlier unit could not even pay them for a meal. "We need the cash for so many other things on a daily basis, but so far I guess we just have to manage with what we get."