Payday woes: Cashless ATMs, limited money in banks

DEHRADUN/NAINITAL/HARIDWAR: As banks witnessed the payday rush on Thursday, several ATMs in the state ran out of cash while many bank branches asked their customers to withdraw only a limited amount due to shortage of currency notes.
“Most of the banks like SBI and Canara Bank have limited amount of cash while others like Union Bank has absolutely no money to dispense.The banks have sent their teams to various centres to get cash but it seems that things will get better only by next week,” said general secretary of Uttarakhand bank employees union, Jagmohan Mendiratta.
Some bankers said that the move was “shoddily implemented” by the government. “Our bank used to receive nearly Rs 40 lakh in a day before November 9, but on Thursday we just got Rs 16 lakh to dispense, which is of course insufficient keeping in mind the payday,” said Praveen Verma, senior branch manager of Punjab National Bank in Haridwar’s Singhdwar.
R K Pahuja, bank manager of SBI Kankhal branch in Haridwar said that around 150 customers were able to withdraw cash from their bank as they received only Rs 15 lakh to dispense. “Our branch has only 50 salary and 32 pension accounts. Therefore, most of the customers were satisfied with the withdrawals,” he said.
In most places, only the main branches were dispensing the upper limit amount of Rs 24,000, while rest restricted the withdrawal limit. Vinod Nath, who has an account in HDFC bank told TOI, “I wanted to withdraw Rs 24,000 but the bank gave me only Rs 10,000. I will have to visit the branch again on Monday. Hopefully, sufficient amount will be available by then. At least on the first day of the month there should have been enough cash at banks.”
Prabhat Kumar, who was going around the city since morning to withdraw cash, said, “I went to Punjab National Bank on Rajpur Road and was told that the ATMs will have money by afternoon but that didn’t happen. So I decided to go to Axis Bank ATM but that too was cashless, and the situation seems to be same in most parts of the cities. I think I will have to wait for a couple of days. May be I manage to withdraw money once the rush reduces.”
“We are trying our best to supply cash to everyone but note crunch is evident. Let’s hope this ends soon. We are also working under tremendous pressure,” said Santosh Pandey, a private bank employee in Nainital.
“We have been filling the ATM and also giving out smaller denomination notes to people, but the demand is more than supply. We are trying to ensure that everyone can withdraw at least some amount today, if not the entire Rs 24,000”, said a Dehradun SBI official, who did not wish to be named.
A bank employee from Haldwani told TOI on condition of anonymity that more than Rs 100 crore in new currency has arrived in the city. “We are working tirelessly to contain the situation. We just want people to cooperate with us,” he said.