As soon as banks on Monday started operating, hundreds of people began queuing up outside banks to withdraw their salary to meet their monthly expenses and to pay for domestic helps, drivers and clear monthly grocery, milk, newspaper and other bills.
Queues at most of the ATMs and banks in North Delhi were shorter than expected though there were complaints that cash dispensing machines were either dry or shut and customers could not draw the maximum permissible amount — `4,500 from ATMs and `24,000 from banks. Many of them said they are withdrawing cash within a few minutes and without waiting in queue.
Amit Yadav, a software engineer in a private firm, after withdrawing `10,000 said, "It is quite surprising for me to get cash within a few minutes as previous month I stood for three hours in queue for withdrawing my salary. I have to pay my maid and grocery bills in cash. Now I can pay the long pending bills of maid and all with this".
Although Rahul Sharma, a Human Resource manager of a multinational company in Gurugram and resident of Modal Town, said he did not need to visit banks as he always withdrew money from State Bank of India ATM near his house. He added that the SBI ATM is regulary stocked with cash so he withdrew at nights.
Vishakha Gupta, a resident of Nirankari Colony, said he lined up at Punjab National Bank in the early morning, expecting huge rush. "I will not like to experience what I experienced last month. Although I have become totally cashless after the decision but need a few thousands in cash for traveling purposes. I withdrew cash without any difficulty".
"I managed to convince the suppliers to accept the payment in cheque and even this month I paid them in cheques. But you cannot pay for everything with cheque I am bound to visit the bank for other payments and happy to see shorter lines,”
said Manish Kumar, a businessman at Daryaganj.
An MNC employee, Mukul Bansal, said he had come to withdraw `24,000 from his bank account and get it in half an hour at Model Town SBI branch.
"I managed to get `24,000 at ICICI banks, Mukherjee Nagar branch. I was told that there was enough cash supply to the banks in the last few days so nothing to panic about,' said Upendra Pandey.