“I have run out of cash. Why don’t you arrange Rs. 20 lakh for me,” a bank manager was overheard frantically calling up his colleague in another branch on phone.
“No” comes the reply from the other end with a rider that the request can be made to some other branch. The former makes a few more such calls and every time he gets the same reply. Though seemingly nervous, the manager is willing to share a few lighter moments as he narrates his plight and gathers information about what is happening to his colleagues in other branches.
He told one of them that a branch manager was down with high blood pressure and locked himself in a room unable to disburse cash to account holders who had queued up in front of the premises since morning. In his own branch, he said he had put his foot down and refused to yield to pressure from union leaders who insisted that Rs. 10,000, which was promised by the government as cash component in salaries of staff, be disbursed immediately.
The scenes were witnessed at a bank inside the high-security Secretariat where the employees and pensioners had lined up to collect cash which was over within an hour of the commencement of banking hours. Finally, a truck loaded with cash arrived as the manager’s efforts paid off and thus resumed distribution of four notes of Rs. 2,000 each and 100 notes of Rs. 20 each to everyone in the queue till the evening. The police kept a tight vigil at the branch, regulating the queue, as a senior officer supplied withdrawal forms till the last man. In the evening, a TRS MLA met the manager in his chambers.
At another bank, also in the Secretariat, the officials distributed Rs. 25 lakh to account holders till the cash chest was empty. They expressed helplessness to replenish the cash and promised to meet the demand for another Rs. 60 lakh on first-come, first-serve basis in the next three days. This branch had 1,500 employees of the Secretariat as account holders.
