Serpentine queues were found in almost all branches of all banks in Madurai as anxious people thronged there to exchange their demonitised Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes and to deposit them and withdraw currency notes of lower value on Thursday.
As the banks reopened after having remained closed for a day on Wednesday, people started forming queues outside the locked doors of the bank much before the scheduled working timings. While major branches of the nationalised banks had currencies of lower values in adequate quantity, some of the branches did not have stock of Rs. 100, Rs. 50 and Rs. 20.
At the branch of State Bank of Travancore in K. Pudur, withdrawal and exchange of notes could not be commenced well after 10.15 a.m. as the branch did not have any currency notes of lower value. “Usually, the demand had been only for Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000. But, it is otherwise. The money is expected in a couple of hours,” said an employee.
Similar, was the case with the Canara Bank in K. Pudur.
Additional seating arrangement had been made in the State Bank of India Vinayaka Nagar branch.
Meanwhile, an official of a nationalised bank said that the operations on Thursday concentrated only on exchange and deposit of of high-value notes along with withdrawal of lower-value denomination notes.
“We are not accepting any loan applications and are not processing them for now as we do not have adequate currency notes,” he said.
At the SBI Tallakulam branch, special arrangement had been made to issue pay-in slips, withdrawal slips and currency exchanging request slips. Similarly, a separate counter was put up outside the bank building to verify the proofs of identity. This was aimed to decongest crowd inside the bank building.
Additional counters were being operated to ease the crowd. “We are expected to replenish the currency notes and the operations of exchanging, withdrawal and depositing are likely to go beyond the normal working hours,” an official of a nationalised bank said.
Meanwhile, the banks have kept photocopies of request slips for exchange of old high denomination bank notes in a particular format.
People can exchange up to Rs. 4,000 a day on production of proof of identity issued by Central and State Governments and public sector units.
Among them are Aadhaar card, driving license, voter identity card, passport, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Card, Pan Card. Along with the request slips people are asked to produce a photocopy of the proofs of identity.
Meanwhile, the photocopying shops in the proximity of banks were very busy as fresh demand for photocopies of proofs of identity surged.
While the roads were choked with parking of additional vehicles, police personnel were posted at every branch to regulate the crowd.
Some of the branches did not have stock of Rs. 100, Rs. 50 and Rs. 20 notes
