The almost invalidity of old Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 old currency papers in the open market with last date of exchanging them through bank counters ending on Thursday has brought a big sigh of relief to the banks. Many bank officials have claimed that the ongoing cash crunch would come to an end with the amount been exchanged everyday till Thursday would be directed to ATMs and bank branches.
A senior bank official said on Friday that end of exchanging old 1,000 and 500 rupee notes would increase cash inflow and stock of valid currency notes at the branches. However, he also said that meeting the exact number of demands of cash might take another week in the state.
“Whatever the supply may be, we have seen it falling short in front of demand in last two weeks. No bank has been able to meet demands not because supply is not there, but because demand has remained completely unpredictable. Now that we don’t have to exchange old notes anymore, we would see an increased cash distribution capacity for account holders at the counters,” said Punjab National Bank DGM (Jharkhand Circle) PK Pradhan today.
Though cash crunch at bank branches and ATMs left noticeable size of customers returning from bank branches and ATMs even today, many of them miserably hit by Jharkhand Bandh also. Yet experts believed that there might be artificial cash crunch at some branches. But they also said that this was not unusual in banking system, which might have only increased in circumstances like this.
“Every bank branch prefers to serve its own customers. Hence, customers coming to get the older currency exchanged might have faced cash crunch. Or may be that even own customers might not get their entire demand fulfilled at certain branches, which is not an unusual phenomenon in banking system even in normal days in certain conditions.
However, if a customer is sure that the cash is available at the branch and his demand is not fulfilled deliberately, he can make a complaint to Circle Office of the bank, as now banks would find difficult to cry cash crunch after end of exchange,” said State level Bankers Committee (Jharkhand) Chief Prasad Joshi.
State Bank of India Chief Manager (GB, Jharkhand Circle) Naveen Kumar said that the cash sufficiency would be attained in less than a week from now after calibration of all the ATMs in the state. “The amount used in exchanging old notes would now be dispensed at meeting customers’ demands, which has started showing results right from today. I am sure cash crunch would be dealt with completely within a week,” said Kumar.
As par revised norms of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the exchange of old currency notes of Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 denominations through bank counters were brought to an end on Thursday. Now Rs. 1,000 notes have been declared completely invalid in open market in any transaction other than only deposit in the banks till December 30. However, Rs. 500 notes have been provided legal life at fuel refilling centres (popularly known as petrol pumps) of government owned oil companies, school fees of government run schools/colleges and at some other government owned institutions till December 15.