When the country as a whole witnessed recalibration of over 8,553 ATMs per day, Odisha could see around a mere 250 ATMs recalibrated a day. The result: over half of the ATMs in rural areas in Odisha still wait to stock the new genre of notes released by the RBI a month ago.
A whopping 1,073 ATMs in Odisha couldn’t dispense the new Rs2000 and Rs500 notes by the end of November, reveals the data with the RBI office here. By the end of December first week, nearly 6,000 of a total of 6,307 ATMs in the State stand recalibrated, added the data. However, if a region-wise recalibration data in the State is looked into then ATMs in rural and semi-urban regions fared the worst. It is though rural ATMs in Odisha account for below 18 per cent of the total 6,307 ATMs.
“Recalibration of almost all ATMs is completed in Odisha. The gap of around 300 ATMs shown is attributed to non-operation of around 341 white-label ATMs in the State. White-label ATMs are ATMs that are operated by non-bank entities in Odisha like Tata Communications Payments solution and Hitachi Payment services, etc”, claimed a senior RBI research officer. He added that non-operational of 100-odd rural ATMs is attributed to disruption in cash logistics. This then would certainly pose a greater difficulty for the common men when banks remained closed for three consecutive days starting from Saturday.
ATM cash logistics in Odisha is maintained by around three utilities, SiS systems, CMS systems and Secure India. “Crunches in manpower and vehicles are posing a challenge for the logistics utilities in these extraordinary situations. Almost all ATMs in urban areas have been stocked with Rs2000 notes only as notes of lower denominations like Rs100 have been channeled to ATMs in semi-urban or rural areas. In both the scenarios, cash runs out of stock quite quickly in ATMs, and to restock it we hire additional vehicle fleets to ensure real-time cash logistics services,” explained an operator in the SiS systems, adding “the coming three days would be a testing times for us.”
Internal data with the RBI office here, however, reveal some significant changes in money circulation in Odisha after demonetisation. The data show the post-demonetisation currency with the public in the State has shrunk by around 40 per cent.
On April 1, 2016, currency with public in the State was around Rs 47,900 crore while post demonetisation the total stock with the public has shrunk to around Rs19,000 crore. The money sucked into results in a big growth in demand deposits in banks and post offices, added RBI sources. Demand deposits are deposits that banks can provide to the depositor on demand unlike the Time deposits that entail a fixed lock-in period.