ATMs run out of cash, public suffers

Amit Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 13

The public continued to face harassment for the fifth day with people queuing up outside ATMs. A majority of the ATMs across the city were shut due to a shortage of cash. The situation in banks was also more or less the same, with many of these running out of cash by the evening.

A majority of the ATMs in Sectors 15, 17, 19, 20, 27, 28, 34, 35, 42, 44 and 46 were found shut as there was unavailability of cash.

In the absence of enough ATMs, people who were in the need of money had no option but to join the long queues.

Serpentine queues were witnessed at several ATMs in southern sectors.

Vishal Dhiman, a resident of Sector 15, said after trying three ATMs in Sector 15, he visited Sector 9, but failed to get cash from any of the ATMs. “Of the six ATMs of different banks in Sector 15, four were not working,” he said.

Many private banks had displayed placards at ATM kiosks stating that the machines were out of order. 

Manpreet Kaur, a PG, said she went to withdraw money from ATMs in Sector 28, but all of these had run out of cash. 

People had to visit nearby sectors to withdraw cash from ATMs. 

Many ATMs at Bank Square in Sector 17 were without cash even though Bank Square houses a large number of banks. Being a Sunday, people thronged banks near their houses to either exchange old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes or to withdraw money.

Meanwhile, policemen were stationed outside banks to prevent any untoward incident.