Cash crunch: Long queues at banks, ATMs continue

NEW DELHI (AP) – India’s government said Tuesday it will use indelible ink to mark the fingers of people swapping scrapped currency notes at banks as authorities struggle to deal with the bedlam caused by the sudden demonetizing of the country’s highest-denomination bills.

Government has decided not to increase the ATM withdrawal limit to Rs 4,000 a day by this weekend as majority of the ATMs are yet to be re-calibrated for dispensing new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes. “We are hoping that banks would be a in a position soon to give us the currency or if the Reserve Bank could allow us to withdraw cash directly from the currency chests of RBI to get things moving”.

Some ATMs, like the one of SBI at Dispur, which was being operated round the clock, have been witnessing serpentine queues. More and more people across the country are complaining about problems with regard to their daily basic needs as local stores have stopped lending goods and other essential items on credit.

The Finance Ministry took a series of steps to increase cash supply in the system, including introducing a new 500 rupee note in the recalibrated ATMs.

“A representative from each of the ATM original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), managed service providers, cash in transit (CIT) companies and white label ATM (WLA) operators will be invited to the Task Force’s deliberation”, the RBI said.

About half of the ATMs have not yet started functioning and wherever were operational ran out of cash in no time. Adding that from today, around 46,000 more ATMs will be operational. State Bank of India chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said, however, that not all machines need these parts.

Bankers say less than half of the 2,18,542 ATMs (as on September-end 2016) are now operational. People can come at their convenience and withdraw money or deposit money.

A public sector bank manager said that they were running short of change. As of now, the situation is lot better than what it was two days ago, ” the SIS Prosegur official said. During the first four days of the new policy, banks have received almost 3 trillion rupees ($44.4 billion) in deposits.

In May, RBI had announced incentives for banks to set up ATMs for dispensing lower denomination notes (up to Rs 100) under the new scheme titled ‘Currency Distribution & Exchange Scheme (CDES)’.