Even this is the peak time for shopping with Raja festival having begun, the shopaholics have to face cash shortage problem in the ATMs of the SBI here.
While most ATMs are found to be empty of cash, the ATM users have to move from one ATM to another to collect money. The account holders of several banks have been facing a tough time due to shortage of cash in most of the ATMs installed at the township area.
Though the ATMs have been installed to provide round- the- clock withdrawal facilities, but one can find a piece of paper struck on the machine front with the message “No cash”. In a few ATMs, one finds shutters are always down.
As a result, most of the customers have been harassed. Being failed to get money, the SBI customers are being forced to withdraw money from other nationalised banks, but then that is no simpler job either.
Here also they have to wait for 15 to 20 minutes in a queue to withdraw money. Such a situation has been going on for last one month or so.
According to one an SBI account holder Sandhan Kumar Behera, “To withdraw money from SBI ATM, I had to move from one ATM to another starting from New Bus stand to Ichhapur ATM on Sunday. But I failed to withdraw money. later, I withdrew money from IDBI bank ATM at Kakat after waiting in queue form more than 10 minutes.”
On June 1, ATMs were replenished with Rs 20 crore cash, but the machines have run out of money within a week due to excessive withdrawal by customers.
The bankers are flooded with complaints from customers. However, they have failed to redress grievances as the bank here is not having the required cash at its disposal. Short supply of currency notes by RBI has given rise to shortage of cash.
“We used to receive cash from RBI twice every month amounting to over Rs200 crore. However, cash flow has trickled down to as low as Rs20 to 30 crore in recent past. Operation of ATMs has become the worst casualty due to scarce cash reserve,” stated chief manager of Kendrapada SBI main branch Pramod Kumar Pradhan.
According to Swadhin Dash, a banker of SBI main branch, the RBI has not been giving the required cash as per the demand. It has been giving less than 50 per cent of the demanded money every time.
“So we have to fill the cash by keeping in hand,” said Dash assuring, however, that within a day or two the problem would be sorted out.