Scramble to draw cash at banks, ATMs in Shimla

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 1

Employees made a beeline for banks and ATMs to withdraw money as salary were credited to accounts today. However, no untoward incident was reported.

Ashish Sharma, who was waiting in the queue to withdraw money, said that the withdrawal limit of Rs 24,000 a week should be increased as most of the payments like rent, bills and ration have to be made in the first week of the month. Moreover, due to demonetisation there had been huge purchases, especially of essential commodities, on credit which have to be repaid.

A large number of ATMs were either closed or without cash and long queues were seen at ATMs where cash was available for withdrawal. “I visited four ATMs but returned empty-handed and now I am standing in the queue for withdrawing money through cheque”, said Pradeep Kumar, an account holder at State Bank of Patiala main branch.

“Against a demand of Rs 600 crores only Rs 100 crores were given to us. Therefore, there was no cash in some ATMS”, Manager Punjab National Bank Gopal Sharma said.

“There is no shortage of cash and we have put four extra counters so that the customers could withdraw salaries without any inconvenience”, said Chief Manager of State Bank of Patiala Devinder Singh Negi adding that there was more than 700 salaries account with the bank.

“We have been selling goods on credit and huge amount is to be recovered from the customers, including the bulk purchasers like hotels and institutions, but the repayment is very slow as sufficient cash is not available with customers”, said Romesh Sood , former president of Shimla Beopar Mandal.

Satish, an employee in private organization, said that cash was available in the banks and it being a working day there was no extra rush. Some businessmen have deferred payments to the staff and staggered the payment schedule to overcome the cash crunch, said leading florist Amit Sood, adding that he would be paying salaries by cheques to employees on December 5 instead of the first day of the month.

A lot of employees decided not to go bank on the first day of the month apprehending that there would be huge rush.