- how big of a problem is this - do we need "freedom" from tappawallas ? Maybe we should just simply improve the post offices in India. They suck big time.
- If we make it possible to load/unload cash onto a cell-phone (like a debit/cash card) - Then have an app to transfer this from one phone to another - I wonder how security would be handled here. In the literate world passwords would do the job - but maybe biometric sensors (in combination with the cellphone numbers) might do the job. Who takes the initiative. If the state gives a contract to someone like Nokia to make special and cheap phones and maintains these ATM centers at the post offices ?
http://indiatogether.org/2009/aug/psa-moneydown.htm
Why should people use him? Why not a bank or post office? "Several do use banks, but most of us have never had a bank account," point out those sitting around the Tappawala. And, he adds, "people feel intimidated in a bank." And the post office? "Even if you are literate, which most migrants are not, you cannot fill out your money order form in Surat in the Oriya language. Getting someone to write it in poor English risks having your money order going astray."
Orissa has recently seen a few postmasters making off with crores of rupees in savings and money orders entrusted to their care by mostly illiterate people. Migrants feel more secure with the Tappawala as his family usually lives in their village or in one nearby. "But we have a security problem," says one. "Once identified, there's a risk." Tappawalas have faced lethal attacks on that cash-carrying stretch from Berhampur to Ganjam's interior villages. Maybe that's why most of them insist they've "retired." They're silent about when they did so. But their money talks
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