ANGADIAS

ANGADIAS

TOPIC: Economy

Context- An FIR has been registered against three Mumbai Police officials last week for allegedly threatening Angadias and extorting money from them in south Mumbai.

Concept-

Who are Angadias?

• The Angadia system is a century-old parallel banking system in the country where traders send cash generally from one state to another through a person called Angadia that stands for courier.
• It is by and large used in the jewellery business with Mumbai – Surat being the most popular route as they are two ends of the diamond trade.
• The cash involved is huge and it is the responsibility of the Angadia to transfer cash from one state to another for which they charge a nominal fee.
• Generally, it is the Gujarati, Marwari and Malbari community that are involved in the business.

Is the system legal?

• While the Angadia system per se is legal, there hangs a cloud over the activity as it is suspected that a lot of times it is used to transfer unaccounted money.
• Since the business deals in cash and there is no account maintained for the same, there have been suspicions that it is also used for transfer of black money like the hawala transaction which is generally used across countries.