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The bus conductor, the babu at the ration shop, the clerk in the milk booth - all demand exact fare. Counters all over the country insist on exact tender. If you oblige, they do not have to return change. Else they have to do some work. Like calculating the cube root of twenty three and determining the refund, what denominations thereof etc - mind you, all without a computer exclusively for that purpose! Indifferent typically, the counter clerks expect the customers to behave. In point of fact, they only want to pass the buck, that is all.

I guess there must be a code for this -- so the related offence may become cognisable. We may call that as Criminal Procedure Code - 1104-A, read with Para 753 Section 3 (c) clause (ii) -- or something equally offending! What shall be the etiquette concerning the dispensing of the change? That is the theme of this note.

If you tender the exact fare, no change need be returned. There is no hassle. The whole issue arises because you do not tender exact fare. You would not want to pay less. You tender a larger denomination instead and get into trouble. How large can be the denomination is, in fact, the debate.

Can you tender a hundred rupee note, buying a single paan? My legal expert says you can, providing the paan costs sixty seven rupees or more.

Upto fifty percent beyond a liability must be accepted for a return of change by the seller - according to my friend. Anything above that shall constitute an insult, against which the seller can take appropriate action as detailed under article 312 after filing an FIR at the nearest Police Station, quadruplicate endorsed to the Home Minister, within twenty four seconds of the offence.

Suppose you negotiate a paav of bhindi for five rupees and tender a seven rupee note. The green grocer shall not crib to return the change. On the contrary if you offer a nine rupee note, he spontaneously inherits the right to hurl the choicest abuses.

Don't you imagine life will be lot simpler if the obligation to return small change is eliminated -- totally? In some societies, the practice of settling the accounts by cheques is in vogue. It is an irony the very same societies also have abundant supplies of all varieties of the small change. Others use credit cards. We reject them. They are not consistent with the culture of this great nation. We ought to have our very own native solution.

Try to place yourself in the shoes of the shop keeper. Why is he offended with a large denomination tender ? It is because what you exchange is not equal to the goods or services delivered. So the solution is obvious -- make the goods supplied or services executed equal to the tender. There is no problem any more!

"What do you mean -- you do not have change ? You order one pizza, for thirty five rupees and tender a hundred rupee note. Take two more pizzas. I do not even demand an extra five. That shall be my gift"

"Yes, I built the flat. What did you do? You could not pay the exact cost of twenty four lakhs ninety seven thousand sixty eight rupees and paise forty two. Please take these three bags of cement and twenty seven bricks. Now you can pay me twenty five lakhs of rupees exact. How about that?" 

Simple, isn't? In fact the petrol station attendants have been practising this technique from time immemorial. A litre may cost thirty four rupees and some dirty fraction. But they can dispense petrol for five hundred rupees or something smoothly rounded off. The concept is praise-worthy. The moral therefore is the following. If you have to buy carrots, always purchase for fifty rupees -- for a whole month at a time. Or if you have to buy brinjals, take a sack for only two hundred rupees enough for a whole joint family. You will suddenly discover life is lot kinder and certainly worth living!

I can offer more. Two and a half CDs, you may take away for twenty rupees. Used though, but I promise not to nag for return change. My next door shop keeper has a sale - three and one half electric bulbs for fifty rupees flat. Guaranteed - absolutely no harassment for change!

You don't buy that? Ok, I have another solution, the best possibly, in the galaxy. You purchase atta today. Tomorrow you take salt. The day after, soap and so on. The advice is -- have a running account with the shop keeper and settle the dues in exact terms, say, once in a month.

It may be convenient to you -- but the shop owner may not like, because he has not been assured any interest, rightfully due till the liabilities are fully settled.

Nice. You can leave a deposit with him. He can dispense the services till the deposit diminishes to nothing. Great. But what? You do not accept, because you may lose the interest on the deposits.

Okay, let us devise a protocol that is acceptable to everybody. Whenever there is an inconvenient situation for having to return some odd fractions of rupees, we may authorise the shop owner - or anybody for that matter, to settle through an IOU. Strange, you may wonder - the bus conductor does that at the back of the ticket today, whenever he runs short of change. We do not object. Let us baptise such instruments legal.

So you start accepting the IOUs. From all and sundry. You will collect lots of them in no time - from the rationwallah, barber or the bar-attender. We must also coerce people that IOU of one kind is negotiable for a transaction of any other type. This means you can tender the IOU obtained from the next door neighbour to the TV repairman.

In my imagination, there must be a standard format in which the IOU must be drafted. Like - I promise to pay the tenderer.. blah blah.. They shall be produced in all denominations. Through exclusive agents. And in quality paper. That is a must. Because they have to stand a number of transactions. The IOU you dispense may be exchanged with the electrician, who would give to his paperboy. The latter would have bartered that for iddlis in the Udipi restaurant. And so on.

I also foresee a need to print them carefully. Not simple enough to be forged easily. Given an opportunity, I could do a wonderful job. I have done this before. I am experienced. I can also make myself available for consultations. I do not have a cell phone yet. You can easily find me hanging around the Reserve Bank. All wakeful hours. You make the appointment with the attendant at Gate three. I shall be at your service.

But we are never short of ideas -- are we? Now tell me, what do you do when sugar is in short supply? You ration whatever is available. Likewise. Regulate the coin supplies so that nobody is short-changed! Authorise the Reserve Bank, for example, to distribute small change for so many rupees per day per individual. Issue ration cards and open distribution outlets. Presto! you also invented employment opportunities for a few millions in the bargain! They may all be recruited as money changers, classes -- Gold, Silver and Bronze. Enforcement must exist -- so people may not hoard large volumes of the small change. So Inspectors can be appointed. Refusing to return small change shall be construed an offence, opening the doors for healthy litigation. The scope seems endless. No doubt, prosperity is indicated at the end of the tunnel. But not immediately. Only after an inevitable incubation and introspection. The law making machinery grinds slow. Do not lose hope. I am here to let you know, fortunately, as to what can be done in the meanwhile. Start first defining what is right and what else is wrong. Suddenly CNG is the only right option. So anything can be demanded.