Chaos, queues persist outside banks, ATMs

Tribune Reporters

Chandigarh, December 8

Cash-starved public, endless queues, dry ATMs and rationed bank withdrawals—that’s Haryana’s painful saga of one month of demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

From Panchkula to Mewat and Sirsa to Sonepat, the same story continues to play out in all 22 districts day after day and no respite from long queues seems likely in the weeks ahead.

While the state government is seeking daily reports from districts about the cash availability as also the status of ATMs, the government, too, finds itself in a helpless situation as it looks to the Centre to come to its rescue.

Sources say that Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has already written a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley seeking greater availability of cash and has even suggested that the cash being provided to the states by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) be made proportional to the deposits coming in. Similar letters, seeking more cash, are learnt to have been written by the Chief Secretary office.

However, this continual correspondence does not seem to have cut any ice with the Centre since neither the cash flow has increased nor is the RBI ready to part with information of the cash being made available to other states as compared to Haryana.

While most ATMs in the districts remain empty, cash in banks, too, gets exhausted within a couple of hours, resulting in protests and heated exchanges between public and bank staff. Ground reports indicate that the cash made available to the banks, too, is being rationed to cater to the maximum number of people.

Yamunanagar: The banking services continued to be crippled in the district as long queues, now a permanent feature, were witnessed outside banks. According to information, only 54 ATMs were functional in the district today as 143 ATMs out of 197 were without cash. Several people complained that they were offered only Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 by bank officials.

Jhajjar: Of the 139 ATM booths, around 100 remained non-functional for the past one month. Most of them were shut while those opened provided cash only for one-two hours in a day compelling people to line-up outside banks to withdraw money.

“On an average, Rs 10 crore is reaching the banks on daily basis, which is 25 per cent of the total demand. The situation still remains critical in urban as well as rural areas due to cash crunch. However, the banks are trying to satisfy maximum customers by distributing equal cash available among them,” said LD Sharma, Lead Bank Manager in Jhajjar.

Kaithal: No relief seems in sight for people who stand in long queues outside banks and ATMs to withdraw cash to meet their daily needs early morning.

As compared to nationalised banks, the situation in private banks seemed better. TK Rana, Lead Bank Manager, said, “The district has been receiving Rs 8-10 crore on daily basis against the demand of Rs 40-45 crore.” He said out of 127 ATMs in the districts, about 12 were functional and delivering cash.

Gurugram: The millennium city was reeling under the impact of demonetisation with trade, industry, transport, realty market and home economics taking a beating. According to official data, 650 ATMs out of 2,900 had no cash yesterday. According to trader association, business dropped by 60 per cent. The real estate market too has been badly hit with property registration down by almost 25 per cent. According to the Labour Department, over 10,000 workers primarily involved in construction have started to leave the city.

Kurukshetra: Long queues at ATMs continued to be in place and residents grumbled about limited availability of cash. According to information, there are 175 ATMs in the district and nearly 50 per cent lack cash.

PS Chauhan, Deputy General Manager, Punjab National Bank, said the banking sector was getting almost one-fourth cash of the daily requirement, adding cash stocks in ATMs were suspended to check swiping cards for multiple withdrawals. "Kurukshetra's daily cash requirement by various banks on a normal day was Rs 50 crore, whereas we have a supply of Rs 15 crore in a day," said Chauhan.

Rohtak: While a majority of ATMs remained cashless most of the time, long queues were witnessed at those dispensing money. Residents of Bohar and Bhalauth villages even blocked road and staged demonstrations against non-availability of sufficient cash.

Rajender and Dilbagh of Madina village in the district lamented that they had to take loans for the marriages of their daughters and son as they were not able to withdraw sufficient money from their bank accounts due to acute shortage of cash in the banks.

On the other hand, some old-age pensioners at Bhaini Chanderpal village in Meham subdivision complained of being given demonetised notes as part of their pension by a bank agent.

In Panipat, the cash in all bank chests put together was not more than Rs 3 crore while 90 per cent of the ATMs were dry today while similar reports were received from Karnal, Ambala, Rohtak, Faridabad, Bhiwani and Sonepat.