Queues get longer at banks, ATMs on weekend

“We had paid salaries to around 700 workers on Monday but a lot of them haven’t been able to change their money at banks and are complaining about a cash crunch”, Vikram Deep Singh Sekhon, a tea garden manager in West Bengal, told AFP.

There are 6,700 bank branches in Bihar. Similarly, people were seen impatiently waiting outside ATMs to withdraw money.

According to reports, the software used in ATMs will have to be completely reprogrammed to enable them to dispense Rs. 2,000 note.

The withdrawal from ATMs is limited to a maximum of 2,000 rupees per card in a day till 18th of November. Meanwhile, people who somehow managed to receive the new 2000 rupee note found themselves trapped as shopkeepers were not having enough exchange to give them back. There was a demand to abolish the 5,000-rupee note following the arrest of model Aayan Ali, but not much progress has been made.

“‘You can withdraw cash up to Rs 2000 per day from our ATMs”. Queue grew longer in front of the banks and post offices today.

But outside they encountered fresh problems as they could not get them changed due to a virtual absence of Rs 100 and 50 and lower denomination notes in the markets.

Amid the woes of the harried customers, a 73-year-old person, Vishwanath Vartak, reportedly died in a suburb of Mumbai while standing in one such queue.

In a related development, the Supreme Court has refused to give an urgent hearing to a petition to quash the 8 November government notification demonetising the notes. Though some people rushed him to hospital after he collapsed, he was declared brought dead.

Thousands of panicked Indians have been flocking to banks since they reopened on Thursday as the two notes accounted for about 85% of the cash in circulation.

Only State Bank ATMs will allow you to take out 4000 rupees per day.

Pratibha Baburao, a housewife who said she had to buy essentials for the Tulasi Lagna festival on Friday, was disappointed. The Old Delhi wholesale market, one of the largest in Asia, operates nearly entirely on a cash basis, Singhal said. However, On November 10, 2016 the cash vans were allegedly busy in reaching cash to various branch offices. “Then there are old people also in the queue”, a customer said in Kolkata.

There are about 2 lakh ATMs across the country. “If there is any unusual pattern of withdrawals from any Aadhaar number and PAN account, we will be investigating such cases”, he said. Banks across India had remained closed on Wednesday to prepare for the transition. “Who will listen to us”.