Almost all ATMs of the State Capital have been recalibrated to dispense new currency notes of Rs 2000 and Rs 500 denomination but in the absence of cash large numbers of these machines are not disbursing money to the customers. In the aftermath of union government’s decision of demonetisation of currency notes of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 on November 08, the ATMs necessitated recalibration. The new currency of Rs 2000 and Rs 500 denomination which the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released is of different dimension than the old currency due to which restructuring in cash tray and change in software of the ATM network was required. After the demonetisation decision, the RBI and the banks took upon a massive and arduous task of calibrating each and every ATM. The Manager of the district lead bank, G S Rana said that almost all ATMs of district have been recalibrated. He said that the district has 723 ATMs of different banks and barring a few which are having some technical problem or are of very old make all the machines have been recalibrated to dispense new currency.
Meanwhile the banks of the capital city continued to witness large crowd of customers eager to withdraw money on Monday. The ATM network of the city provided some relief to the residents as more such machines were dispensing cash on the day than last week. large number of ATMs of Punjab National Bank (PNB) and State Bank of India (SBI) were active on the day. In the private banks the ATMs of ICICI and HDFC were also active. The bankers are of the view that the problem of cash could persists for some more days. They informed that they have received sufficient amount of new currency notes but the problem is that the people are hesitating to deposit money in the banks due to which the all important cycle of cash is not getting completed.
However people standing in long serpentine queues outside the banks and ATMs are getting restless. Shalini Bisht a housewife said that things have not eased up even after 41 days of the decision of government to ban old currency notes of Rs 1000 and Rs 500. “Cash is needed while doing retail shopping, purchasing medicines, vegetables and milk. I have even downloaded Paytm and deposited the fees of my son by cheque but the even then cash is needed and which is not being made available by the banks,’’ she said.