Sanitisers missing from ATMs, residents fume

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 9

Most of the ATMs in the city do not have hand sanitisers to clean hands before or after using the keypad.

Residents are risking their lives by withdrawing money from ATMs. As per the advisory, there should be hand sanitisers inside every ATM.

Experts claim that keypads of ATMs are the most contaminated surfaces in public areas and potent carriers of coronavirus. Yet, most of the ATMs in the city are not providing sanitisers. During a visit to several ATMs, only a few were equipped with a hand sanitiser.

Around 10 ATMs of different banks on various roads of the city did not have hand sanitisers. Not only this, some ATM booths of national banks were not even cleaned properly. “Banks were asked to sanitise ATM counters every day. It had also asked them to keep hand sanitisers in each of their ATMs advising customers to use it before and after using the machines,” Harpal Singh, a local resident.

Meanwhile, banks keep hand sanitisers at the entry and security guards ask everyone to use it but hand sanitisers are very rare at ATMs. On being asked, a bank manager at Lawrence Road said: “We don’t have security guard for the ATM booth. People steal hand sanitiser bottles from booths.”

Dilbag Singh, a guard at an ATM booth, said: “We had placed a bottle of sanitiser for visitors last week. I was having food in the cabin behind, when some visitor stole the sanitiser.”

“Hundreds of people use ATM booths everyday. The government should ask banks to make proper arrangement,” said Sarbajit Singh, a resident.

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