Hundreds of people who had gone to draw their salaries and pensions on Tuesday revisited the demonetisation era when the treasuries in the district went ‘cashless’ on the second working day of the new financial year.
Said Achamma, a retired government official who had gone to the district treasury to draw her pension: “I hoped to buy medicines and wanted some extra money for the forthcoming Easter festivities. Now I have to return tomorrow.”
According to K.R. Sreelatha, district treasury officer, barring the town sub-treasury, none of the treasuries, including the district treasury, received more than ₹10 lakh.
“We at the district treasury had a need of ₹1.5 crore for the day and as the first cache sought ₹50 lakh. We got less than ₹10 lakh. This was the case in also most all the treasuries in the district though some of them managed with the funds from the challans.
“Vishu is around the corner and this time of the year the treasuries need more money in their chests to meet the demand,” Ms. Sreelatha pointed out.
So far, the cash for the treasuries was provided through the 12 chests the State Bank of Travancore had maintained across the district. With the merger with the State Bank of India (SBI), the total number of chests have gone up to 13, including the one chest operated by the SBI. According to bank officials, they had directive from the Reserve Bank of India to limit the distribution to ₹10 lakh to the sub-treasuries.
The cash availability had come down to less than ₹35 crore in the chests, much of it in small denominations, said one of them. “There is a dearth of high denomination notes such as ₹2,000 and ₹500,” an official said. “We feel that the high denomination notes are not getting back into circulation.” They are also concerned about the fact that the requirement for coins and fresh notes will be more during Vishu. “We don’t know whether we will be able to disburse them this year,” said the official.
