Residents block road over cash crunch in Hisar

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, December 28

Hisar: Residents of Bithmara village in the Uklana subdivision today blocked the Hisar-Tohana road in protest against the non-availability of cash with the local branch of Punjab National Bank.  A large number of villagers comprising women lined up outside the bank early morning today for cash. But the bank officials intimated the people that there was no cash available in with them. This enraged the villagers and they blocked traffic. They alleged that the bank had not been disbursing cash for the last four days. They also accused the staff of providing cash to their relatives. Maya Ram, Uklana police SHO, came to the spot and pacified them. The bank started disbursing the cash to the customers after the intervention of the police.

A similar incident took place yesterday when the Sarv Haryana Gramin Bank failed to give cash to customers. Residents of Narnaund village blocked the Hisar-Chandigarh road.

Official sources said the district had a shortage of about one third cash. Against an amount of Rs 2,520 crore of demonetised money deposited, the banks are able to provide only Rs 780 crore in the district.