Cash crunch: Google comes forward to help find an ATM near you

“The Federal Bank ATM at Thevara in Kochi successfully dispensed Rs 2,000 denomination notes to customers”, the Bank told PTI on Tuesday. Employees at many banks have observed the same people coming multiple times during the day for exchanging notes.

ATMs will still take two more weeks before they start dispensing new high-value Rs 500 and 2,000 notes.

Unless the ATMs are operationalised as early as possible, the long queues outside the banks will continue, the officials said.

The Reserve Bank of India has created a FAQs section on its website.

Eight days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation, there just isn’t enough cash with banks to exchange old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, and to honour cheques. Authorities made a decision to mark individuals after lenders discovered that the same set of people were turning up at various bank branches to exchange cash, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The first people showed up at the bank long before dawn, forming a line in the cold and the smog and silently waiting for the chance to withdraw their own money.

New 500 and 2,000 notes are in circulation but in short supply, while there is a 2,500 rupee per card per day limit on ATM (automatic teller machine) withdrawals. Mr Das said the amount an individual can change from old notes to new would be reduced to 2,000 rupees from 4,500 rupees, in an attempt to ensure that more people could get hold of at least some cash.

“The government is pushing us from one crisis to another”, said Kavita Gupta, a housewife, who has to send money to her ailing mother in a village.

But not all are upset by the move and say that they can bear the brunt of the cash train to get the country’s black money – often used to fund terrorism – out of circulation.

“While there was talk of the new Rs.500 notes making it to banks, they are yet to reach”.

As a result of this, those who have already exchanged old currency notes are unable to queue up again. “Some ATMs didn’t have cassette for Rs 100, so they are adding it”. Most people remained optimistic about the demonetization move despite the toil outside banks, but a few expressed doubts over its implementation.