People seeking to withdraw cash continued to reel under the effect of demonetisation with several banks in Puducherry not being replenished with currency notes by the Reserve Bank of India on Saturday. Many ATMs remained non-functional.
The Muthialpet branch of Canara Bank has put up a notice stating that it has not received currency notes from the RBI. A senior bank official said that they were receiving Rs. 30 lakh as against Rs. 2 crore required every day.
“We have been rationing the money by giving Rs. 4,000 for SB account holders and Rs. 10,000 a day for the current account holders. However, customers demanded that they be paid higher amount on the beginning of the month. In the last two days, we allowed the SB account holders to withdraw Rs. 8,000 and Rs 40,000 for current account holders. So far, we have received only notes of denomination of 2,000. The bank does not have notes of 500 or 100 denomination,” said the official. The official added that they received cash till Friday. “On Friday evening, we received a call that cash would not be supplied on Saturday. The RBI is not working on Saturday. We need to wait till Monday to get cash,” the official added.
Canara Bank has 49 branches in Puducherry. The UCO bank had only Rs. 2,000 notes.
Confederation of Puducherry State Government Employees’ Association General Secretary Premadasan said the association had demanded the government to pay at least Rs. 10,000 in cash as part of the salary. “The government did not consider our demand since there is no cash with the banks. The middle class and the lower middle class have been affected the most. Even a small tea stall owner is facing a loss of 30 to 40 per cent in the income,” he said.
Association president Balamohan added that even pensioners were facing the same problems. “There is no relief for the senior citizens either,” he added.
