A majority of private sector banks in the city were reduced to collecting deposits as they ran out of new currency and stopped exchanging old notes on Wednesday. The ATMs were also non-functional. In contrast, the public sector bank branches in the city had customers spilling out of the branch with queues snaking across streets, heated exchanges, numbered tokens and hours-long wait to lay their hands on new notes.
“The money will come at 7 p.m. The ATMs have been shut since yesterday,” says a staffer at ICICI Bank, Mehdipatnam. At 11.10 a.m., the bank is doing the transactions of people having who have stood in queue and have been issued 270 tokens between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. for the day.
It is real mayhem at the Bank of Baroda branch at Mehdipatnam as men and women jostle to get inside. There are 50 men and 50 women outside, and 30 women and 30 men inside at 11.39 a.m.
“No studies. We are all waiting in queue. If you have money, you can have food and then only you can study. Without money everything stops. I bought a book to read,” says Kenyan student Abdullah, studying in G. Pulla Reddy College. He withdrew money two days earlier by hunting for an ATM in the night but got lost in the lanes of Kukatpally.
No working ATM
There wasn’t a single functioning ATM or a bank from Gudimalkapur to Puranapul to Moosabowli. It was only at Shalibanda that the IDBI Bank was functioning as about 110 men and women outside and an equal number outside pushed, shoved and jostled to make their transactions. Officials at the Post Office at Miyan Mishk Masjid put out a sign announcing cash operations from 2 p.m., as customers waited patiently.
“I am waiting from 6.30 a.m. and only now I have managed to deposit money,” says R. Pradeep Kumar, as he jubilantly stepped out of Aliabad branch of SBI at 12.49 p.m. “Very soon we will see people sleeping outside the bank branches,” he says darkly.
Bank and police officials have their hands full at Shamsheergunj SBI as the queue consists of about 200 women and 150 men on either side of the bank.
“Some of these people are waiting from 5 a.m.,” informs the traffic constable regulating traffic at the key intersection.
Waiting since dawn
“I came at 6.30 a.m. and there were perhaps 40 people ahead of me but even now I have not been able to deposit my money,” says Faiz Mirza of Balanagar at the Chandrayangutta SBI bank where the queue is split into those making deposits and those wanting to exchange notes.
There are 270 women and 211 men waiting in the sun at 1.35 p.m.
At Andhra Bank, Saidabad, the queue is smaller as an old woman walks near the branch, a passerby tells her: “ Thodey log hai, mil jayega paisa .”
In the Bank Street with banks on either side of the road, only the public sector banks are functioning and there are huge queues at these branches.
The first sign of inking of fingers being done is at the SBI, Koti which draws a huge media troupe trying to catch the action. But this doesn’t lessen the crowd or the impatience of the customers.
