Almost all the banks in the city ran out of cash with no despatches from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the last four days. Several bank branches saw ‘shortage’ of cash at their disposal, and many branches went dry by Friday evening.
Even the very few cash-yielding ATMs ran out of cash in the day. Shutters were down with no one standing in a queue to withdraw money, as ATMs displayed the ‘no cash;’ sign.
The worst sufferers were those who could not withdraw money from the ATMs or bank branches on Friday and had no cash on hand. The banks will remain closed for three days — second Saturday, Sunday, a regular holiday, while on Monday banks will remain closed on account of Milad-un-Nabi.
The upcoming bank holidays for three consecutive days could further aggravate the woes of people amid existing cash crunch situation.
The officials have replenished the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) with whatever cash they have. The banks will be able to refill the machines only if the RBI despatches currency to the State.
“The ATMs are likely to function for half a day or so given the prevailing trend. We cannot avoid hanging ‘out of service’/ ‘no cash’ boards as the banks don’t have cash to refill the machines,” said a senior official of a public sector bank, who didn’t want to be named.
RBI despatches
The RBI despatched about Rs. 14,500 crore worth currency from November 10 to Andhra Pradesh.
The last despatch was four days ago, and the State received Rs. 2,100 crore worth currency of various denominations.
The despatches were so meagre that banks were facing a massive shortage of cash.
On an average, each district received about Rs. 470 crore in the last 29 days.
The majority of the currency received is Rs. 2,000 currency denomination. Ever since the Union government demonetised Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes, banks are facing a massive shortage of cash and are struggling to contain serpentine queues. Re-stocking ATMs is also a Herculean task for the bankers.
SBI road show today
State Bank of India will organise ‘SBI Buddy Road Show’ on Saturday to create awareness among merchant clientèle and public on digital banking.
The road show will begin at SBI Administrative Office at Pushpa Hotel Centre here at 11 a.m.
