In a much awaited respite to customers and bank staff, ATMs in the city are ready to dispense Rs2,000 new currency from Wednesday. The company managing and maintaining ATMs started working on this herculean task from early in the morning on Tuesday with State Bank of India (SBI) ATMs. A senior SBI official said that at least two dozens of bank ATMs were expected to be loaded with new currency notes, and ATM maintaining company employees were asked to work non-stop for a few days.
"The NCR Corporation, which maintains and manages most of the ATMs in the city, has started reconfiguration of SBI ATMs from morning on Tuesday. They are expected to complete at least two dozens of ATMS by evening, in which we are ready to load Rs2,000 currency notes anytime. I believe visitors must have a pleasant feeling getting new currency notes of Rs2,000 denominations anytime by Wednesday evening at many of these ATMs already under reconfiguration," said a senior manager at SBI Circle office in Ranchi.
The official said that other bank ATMs would get reconfigured once all SBI ATMs start dispensing new currencies. "Because SBI has the widest reach in terms of ATMs in the city, the process has been started with our ATMs," added the official. However, he also said that banks were facing supply shortage of Rs 100 notes, the most loved currency paper in present scenario, resulting in empty ATMs at many locations.
An Allahabad Bank official, on the other hand, said that banks would remain under pressure until new currency papers of Rs500 denominations take charge of the market from the front. "It is true that once Rs 2,000 notes start appearing in ATMs, bank branches and ATMs would start getting out of pressure. However, the real pressure would come to an end only after Rs 500 currency notes start appearing from ATMs," said the official.
Banks have also started taking a few other measures to ease the pressure. "We are facing a war-like situation in terms of availability of cash also because of the fact that there are thousands of repeat visitors in banks who actually don't need cash but they have been visiting bank branches and ATMs everyday only to accumulate money. Hence, we are trying to discourage those visitors until situation comes under control," said the SBI official. The banks are also reportedly going to apply indelible ink on one finger of those coming to exchange old notes from Wednesday, so that such repeat visitors for at least some days of pressure could be discouraged.
Meanwhile, the banks started operation on Tuesday under huge pressure after a holiday on Monday. long queues outside bank branches and ATMs were apparent at many places. However, increased limit of cash withdrawal through ATM to Rs2,500 from Rs2,000 earlier has also resulted in availability of disposable currency in the market. Bank officials said that large number of households had already received at least some amount of operating currency, which will definitely ease some pressure in days to come.