: People continued to reel under the impact of the demonetisation move on Friday as thousands queued up outside banks and ATMs across the State to exchange their Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes and withdraw money.
And, it was a long wait for many: The ATMs were supposed to be open and functioning from the morning, but at many of the cities and towns, the ATMs remained closed till noon. In places where they were functional, the queues were serpentine.
The story was the same across Tiruchi, Madurai, Coimbatore, Kancheepuram and Chennai. Only a few ATMs were functioning and people had to desperately search for one that was dispensing cash.
S. Lalitha, a resident of Sadasivam Nagar in Madipakkam, said that the first thing she did in the morning was to rush to a few ATMs in her locality only to find them dish out receipts stating the requested cash transactions could not be carried out.
N. Kumarapandi, a resident of K. Pudur in Madurai, running a two-wheeler workshop, said that he had been roaming around the city since morning in search of a functioning ATM but could not find one. “I am in dire need of cash since yesterday. There are long queues in banks, which are encouraging only cash exchanges and deposits and not withdrawals,” he said.
In Coimbatore too, the same situation prevailed. Only those banks that had adequate cash sent money for ATMs, said a bank manager. Many people like Chithra, a resident of K.K. Nagar in Tiruchi, had to go from one locality to another in search of ATMs that were functioning.
“The ATMs I went to in Thillai Nagar, Woraiyur and Cantonment areas in the city remained closed. This is exhausting and I have run out of cash and need smaller denomination notes for day-to-day expenses. We could not even pay for grocery and vegetables,” she said.
Travellers also bore the brunt of the cash shortage. Vijayaraghavan, a businessman from Chennai, was able to get some cash after skipping his breakfast as he ran out of cash. “It was a big relief that I could finally get some cash,” he said after withdrawing money from an SBI ATM near Central Bus Stand in Tiruchi. Onsite ATMs – those inside bank premises – in Kancheepuram district started functioning fully from around noon but ATMs maintained through outsourcing partners were not fully functional. According to official sources, there are around 300 ATM centres in the district and out of this, one-fourth were onsite ATMs.
Businesses take a hit
Business establishments either remained shut or reported minuscule business. Though, the bankers expected most of the ATMs to be functional by noon, many of the ATMs remained out-of-service until late in the afternoon. There was a shortage of Rs. 100 notes that had to be fed into the ATMs. “That is why ATMs could not function in full swing,” a bank official said. The trouble is not over yet. It could take about six days for the situation to normalise, officials said.
“We have cleared only 50 per cent of ATMs as of Thursday, flushing out old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, and loading them with Rs. 100 notes. In six days, the entire process would be over,” Balasubramanian, President–Transaction Processing & ATM Services, FSS told The Hindu . The company maintains 40,000 ATMs across the country.
For people in rural areas, however, access to cash through ATMs will take even longer as smaller denomination cash has to be transported from a central location to the ATMs. “The distance is sometimes over 100 km. For Rs. 2, 000 notes, testing and configuration have to be carried out for dispensing them through ATMs. Hence, Rs. 2,000 notes will be available at the ATMs only after a week,” Mr. Balasubramanian said.
(With inputs from Sanjay Vijaykumar, Pon Vasanth Arunachalam, S. Ganesan, Sangeetha Kandavel, R. Srikanth, Soundariya Preetha, V. Venkatasubramanian and T.K. Rohit)
