It will take three more months for the State to recover from the wounds caused by demonetisation. “There is acute shortage of Rs. 100 notes, Rs. 500 notes are not available, and Rs. 2,000 notes cannot be exchanged. It will take minimum three months for the dust to settle down,” D. Thomas Franco Rajendra Dev, senior vice-president of All India Bank Officers Confederation, told The Hindu.
From day one, new generation private banks were given more currency by the Reserve Bank of India. Even the State Bank of India (SBI), which maintains the largest currency chest, has been asked to collect cash from ICICI Bank in Chennai and HDFC Bank in Coimbatore. According to Mr. Franco, three private banks were given Rs. 6,100 crore while the remaining banks were given Rs. 7,800 crore. As of March 2016, Tamil Nadu has 9,971 bank branches including foreign banks and regional rural banks.
An official from a public sector bank said that December 1, the salary day is when the real heat would be felt. “There is a cash crunch and a fully loaded ATM runs out of cash in two hours. Customers are going to storm branches as soon as their salary lands in their accounts,” he said. Around 60 per cent of the ATMs in the State had started functioning but there was shortage of cash.
On Wednesday, employees working in private firms got their salary credited into their accounts but were not able to withdraw it due to cash shortage. Many pensioners returned home empty handed. N.B.S. Mani, a retired BSNL employee who went to withdraw his pension money, had to return with an empty wallet.
Mr Franco said that December 1 was going to be a challenging day for bankers. “Other than works related to demonetisation, regular banking activities have come to a halt. Advances are going down. Non Performing Assets are increasing. Deferment of repayment has been impacted. These trends are unhealthy,” he added.
