People were put to inconvenience for the second day after higher value currency was withdrawn from circulation, here on Thursday.
Long queues were seen in front of banks even before they opened. The queue before the State Bank of India main branch and District Central Cooperative (DCC) Bank stretched for several metres.
Some banks opened special counters for exchange of demonetised notes. However, customers and bank staff had to work through rush and pressure. A few bank branches had altercations between customers and staff.
People with lesser means seemed to be the worst hit. M. Rasul Mian, who works as a messenger in a private establishment, had to buy spectacles on Wednesday. But all he had was a Rs. 500 note. “I went to three shops only to be turned down. Finally, I got spectacles after my employer asked a shop to give me a pair on credit,” he said.
Vegetable vendor Anil Arke from Nagankera said his wife was worried about what to do with the money she had saved up. “We don’t have a bank account and don’t know what to do now. When we went to the bank to open an account, they asked us to come back next week,” he said.
At Guru Nanak Dev Engineering college, around 100 labourers and Group ‘D’ employees refused to accept salaries that was distributed on Tuesday and Wednesday when the officers gave it in cash.
Some people seemed to have benefited from the government’s move too. “A lot of our friends bought gold at a premium of Rs. 1,000- Rs. 1,200 per gram. Jewellers had a field day,” Shashi Kumar Patil Sangam, a landlord from Aurad said.
Sources in the DCC bank, that has the highest number of branches in the district, said around Rs 3. crore was deposited in savings and current accounts in the bank’s branches on Thursday.
Jagadish Patil, who runs a restaurant in the city, said his staff had a tough time to reason with customers. “When we opened our restaurant on Wednesday, we began giving away change to customers who bought less but paid with a higher denomination bill. But on Thursday, we were forced to ask customers to give us Rs. 100 or Rs. 50 notes, or to buy dishes for the whole of Rs. 500 or Rs. 1,000 that they were giving us,” he said.
Some petrol outlets also forced customers who dished out Rs. 500 or Rs. 1,000 notes to buy fuel for the full amount.
