Banks on toes to meet pay-day rush

BHUBANESWAR: Amid the nationwide chaos and confusion still continuing over currency recall and conversion, banks, including the Reserve Bank of India, are on their toes to meet the huge demand of money on salary day.
They are working round the clock to ensure there are no hitches in the deposit of money into the accounts of the salaried.
Officials ruled out any impact of demonitization in the payment procedure of salaries to government and private sector employees.
But the salaried are not ruling out another round of serpentine queues at ATMs and a terrible shortage of lower denomination notes.
"We are keeping a track of the requirement of money by different banks and supplying them cash accordingly. There is no shortage of money," assured the general manager of RBI, Sarada Prasanna Mohanty.
Officials said heavy transactions are usually made in the last three days of the month and the first week of every month when salaries are deposited into the accounts of employees.
"Since the employer deposits the money in the bank and we just transfer it to the accounts of respective employees, there is no cash transaction as such. So demonetisation will not affect salary disbursement. But since there is a limit on withdrawal, there could be some problem," said Jyoti Bhusan Mohapatra, a senior officer with the State Bank of India and convenor of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), Odisha chapter.
Sources said many business houses have asked for cash cards and smart pay-out cards to pay salaries. "Paying through cash card is an easier method of giving salary. Some have already adopted the cash card method," said a senior officer in IDBI bank here.
Many ATMs have already downed shutters in the city and in the rural areas ATMs have run out of currency. The functional ones are seeing long queues accommodating the harassed customers. A reason why ATMs are not able to spew out money is because they have not been calibrated to accommodate the new small currency notes.
Soma Rani Bose, a housewife, said she needs to make payments to her house owner, maid, milk man, grocer and electricity supplier in the beginning of the month. "In addition to this I have to pay school fees for my children and tuition fees. The weekly withdrawal limit will not suffice," she said, adding that ever since demonitisation was announced she has been spending all her time at ATM queues and the process will start all over again after pay day.
What's also frustrating ATM users is the flow of high denomination notes every time they do a transaction. "We are only getting 2,000-rupee notes. Can we pay Rs 2,000 to an auto-rickshaw driver or a vegetable vendor? The banks must do something about this," said Narahari Dash, a senior citizen.