The opening of banks on Sunday failed to bring reprieve to the people in Uttarakhand as long queues continued to be witnessed outside the banks and ATM on the day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 08 had made a sudden declaration of demonetisation of currency notes of Rs 1000 and 500. After closure of a day, the banks opened on Thursday but shortage of cash, problem in disbursal of new currency and unprecedented rush of people to the banks and ATMs have made things very difficult for the banking system. Almost half of the ATMs in state capital, Dehradun continued to be non operational on Sunday also. The ATMs which functioned soon ran out of currency due to onslaught of the customers. The problem of bankers is compounded by the fact that the ATMs are not accepting the new tenders of two thousand rupees.
The Deputy Zonal Manager Uttarakhand of Dena Bank, Keshav Ram told The Pioneer that some change in the setting of the machines is needed to be done so that they are able to dispense Rs 2000 note. He said that this change in machine would require at least two to three days. In such a scenario the ATMs are disbursing a highest tender of Rs 100 only due to which these machines are dispensing less cash than they earlier use to give. One of a bank employee said that earlier the ATM of his bank can disburse cash up to Rs 25 lakh once all its slots are filled but now the machine is able to distribute only Rs 8 lakh once.
The Manager of district lead bank, Gopal Singh Rana too accepted that ATMs are not able to withstand the huge load of customers and many incidences of failure of machine are being reported. He said that the most of the ATMs of State Bank of India (SBI) in city are operational but machines of most of the banks barring some private ones are not operational due to shortage of cash. He said that only five ATMs of Punjab National Bank could be made operational on the day. Rana said that old currency worth Rs 170 crore has been exchanged in Dehradun till Saturday.
Meanwhile the patience of people who are facing problems due to cash crunch has started waning. “It appears that the decision of demonetisation of currency was taken without any preparation of logistics. The Government owes an answer from crores of the harassed people who are waiting in the queues in front of ATMs and banks,’’ said Manvendra Bisht a Raipur road resident. However large number of shopkeepers including the smaller ones is planning to install debit card machines so that the people do not need to carry cash to their shops.