The hopes of people to get currency from the ATM network of the city were dashed as all these machines become non functional by Monday afternoon. The holiday of banks on account of Guru Parva caused further trouble as empty ATMs were not refilled.
The Manager of the district lead bank, Gopal Singh Rana told The Pioneer that 80 percent of the ATM were functional in the morning but soon this percentage dropped to 50 and by afternoon most of ATMs were non functional. He said that many machines are developing technical snags as these machines are now disbursing highest tender of Rs 100 only which means that the gear of the machines rotates twenty time if someone is intending to withdraw an amount of Rs 2000 which used to rotates only two or four times before demonetisation move of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 currency. Due to non stop work these machines are heating up and developing problems. Rana said that shortage of Rs 100 notes and the fact that the new tender of Rs 2000 cannot be disbursed from ATMs because of technical reasons, have ensured that these machines are non operational.
Meanwhile, the banks officials are now faced with the problem of storage of the now defunct currency notes of Rs 1000 and Rs 500. The banks are receiving these notes in large numbers from the people who are either exchanging them or are depositing them into their accounts. “Yes we are facing problems, small branches have sent these demonetised currency notes to the larger braches which are now awaiting orders from the RBI on how to dispose them. We are already overworked and short of staff to deal with the onslaught of customers and in such a scenario the safe custody of these demonetised currency is a big headache for us,’’ said one a senior branch manager of a bank.
Striking a humanitarian note the police personnel of Uttarakhand police have decided to offer tea and water to the customers standing in long queues outside the banks and ATMs. On Sunday too some people were surprised when the men in khaki offered water to them when they were standing in queues outside the ATMs.