When people were left feeling poorer

Many who stood in a queue for petrol had to return disappointed asRs. 500 notes were not accepted.— Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

With notes of high denomination no longer being legal tender from midnight, people producing Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes were denied petrol at bunks. “I stood in the queue at the petrol bunk for one hour only to be told that Rs 500 will not be accepted. I don’t have enough petrol in my bike to go home”, said Mohd Asif, a private employee who left with refill from the bunk at Mehdipatnam

The ATMs, on the other hand, witnessed queues with panic stricken people converging to withdraw money. However, many of them were down or did not dispense Rs 100 notes despite a long wait. The people left the kiosks cursing the government at the sudden decision.

Outside NIMS hospital, family members of patients jostled to get in to the ATM centre to withdraw money. People were also seen flocking to ATM centres to check for deposit machines so as to credit Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes back in to their account

Workers who receive their pay in cash were the worst hit . Most got paid in denominations of Rs.500 and Rs.1000 which they cannot spend now.

“My husband and I got paid in Rs.500s today itself. What will I pay with for next two days? Further, neither my husband nor I have a bank account here in the city to deposit the notes,” laments Yashoda, a domestic help whose husband works as watchman in Dilsukhnagar.

The decision also worried the trading community. “As we pay the wholesalers in hard cash we maintain fairly high amount of cash as working capital. Ban on the two higher denomination of notes is quite worry some for us as we don’t know how much liquid cash we can exchange in banks”, Niranjan Agarwal, who runs kitchenware and hardware shops said.