Delhi: No respite from rush, elderly face trouble

New Delhi: On the fourth consecutive day of money exchange, serpentine queues, agitated crowd and more chaos was witnessed as cash-starved people struggled to exchange and withdraw money on the last day of the weekend.

There was no let up in the rush for exchanging demonetised notes and withdrawing money with many people spending their Sunday queuing up outside banks and ATMs since early morning hours, even as some of the outlets were shut after being short on cash.

“Since it’s a Sunday, we are expecting more crowds outside banks and ATMs. We have made adequate security arrangements to ensure that no untoward incident occurs,” said a senior police official.

Mohit Jha, a resident of Vikaspuri, said, “I didn’t get a chance to exchange the banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as I was working. But today is my off day and so I rushed to the bank only to find a huge crowd of people waiting for their turn to come. The crowd is swelling by the hour.”

On Saturday, there were rumours of stampede, of people plundering goods from a mall in Seelampur, following which police asked citizens not to spread such rumours and warned of strict action.

Roopak Das, a 71-year-old man, said that he had a harrowing time on Saturday running from one ATM to another to withdraw money. “I visited a number of ATMs to withdraw money yesterday but none of them were operational. I’m old and there is nobody at my home who can withdraw money on my behalf. I’m finding this extremely difficult. Today, I woke up early and reached the ATM but then was a long queue. I just hope that I am able to withdraw money today,” Mr Das said.

Meanwhile, following demonetisation of high value currency notes, there has been a significant dip in sales of fruits and vegetables in the wholesale markets as most retailers are running short on cash. Some of the wholesale trade chambers said they are mulling to shut business for some days. Delhi Agriculture Marketing Board recently approached banks to set up their special counters inside the Azadpur fruit and vegetable wholesale markets so that retailers could withdraw cash and exchange their old notes, but such request was turned down. Chambers of Azadpur Fruit and Vegetable Traders are mulling to shut down wholesale markets for a few days as sales have been affected adversely because the retailers don’t have cash to pay. Business has slumped by almost 50 per cent, a senior government official said.

“The situation is such that vegetable and fruits are rotting every day as there has been a significant dip in numbers of retailers coming here. Transporters are also refusing to accept cheques,” a wholesaler reported.