New Delhi: With banks shut in the national capital and ATMs running dry in most places, a shortage of cash continued to cripple daily lives of people on the second Sunday post demonetisation. In many areas, people, in desperate need of short change ran from one ATM to the other, with few managing to withdraw and the rest left dejected as machines emptied out before their turn.
At places, queues formed up within minutes of news spreading word of mouth that cash was being dispensed at a particular ATM. “I went looking for cash at an ATM in Central Delhi. As soon as I entered the details, there was a deduction from my account but the machine did not disburse any cash,” Jheelum Mitra, an IT professional, said.
On weekdays, the Delhi police has been deploying about 12,000 personnel outside banks and ATMs to manage the crowd.
Banks have been serving only their respective customers and are not exchanging the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from customers of other banks since Saturday.
However, this restriction was not applicable on senior citizens on Saturday as they were allowed to visit any bank branch to exchange old defunct currency notes. The exchange limit has already been less than halved to Rs 2,000 to ease some pressure on cash demand.
Meanwhile, with the banks witnessing huge rush, the Delhi government has requested the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and State Bank of India (SBI) to exempt the staff of the principal accounts office (PAO) from standing in long queues to ensure timely payments to employees, beneficiaries, vendors, and suppliers, among others. Payment instructions issued by PAOs are deposited with the RBI and the SBI for arranging the credit in the accounts of the staff.
Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of high value currency notes on November 8, there has been long queues outside banks and ATMs. In his written communication to the RBI and the SBI, Prakash Chand (controller of accounts, PAO) said that nowadays, public was visiting the bank branches for withdrawal of money from their accounts and also depositing and exchanging their old notes. “Keeping in view the rush of public in bank branches, it may be likely that the staff of the PAOs are also asked by the bank or security personnel to stand in queues which may lead to delay in the arrangements of timely payments.”
“You (AGMs of RBI and SBI) are requested to look into the matter personally and make necessary arrangements to allow the staff of PAOs to deposit the payment instructions without standing in queues,” Mr Chand said in the communication.
