Kochiites’ wallets remain empty as ATMs go dry

Penniless account holders desperately queue up in front of counters

November 12, 2016 12:00 am | Updated December 02, 2016 03:05 pm IST - KOCHI:

It was another harrowing day for the cash-strapped residents of Kochi as their wallets and a large number of ATMs remained empty for the best part of Friday.

ATM counters of most of the banks remained shut on a day when they re-opened after remaining closed for two days.

Most of the counters displayed the board ‘out of order’. A few counters ran out of money during the first few hours of operation as penniless account holders desperately queued up in front of them to collect money.

State Bank of India (SBI) had all its 20 cash deposit machines operational from the morning where account holders could deposit up to Rs.2 lakh. However, only four out of its 120 ATMs in the district were ready by around 3.30 p.m. There was not much difference in the case of 130 ATMs of the State Bank of Travancore.

Technical configurations

“There were some technical configurations to be done before loading money and it took time. We are confident of getting all our ATMs ready by tomorrow,” a senior SBI official said.

“Only Rs.100 bills were fed into ATMs. In normal course, one such filling would have lasted enough for 125 customers to withdraw Rs.2000, the daily limit fixed for withdrawal through ATMs. However, SBI arranged for an additional tray of Rs.100 bills inside the machine thus doubling the service capacity to 250 customers,” the official said.

ICICI bank had only 45 out of its 300-odd ATMs across the State ready by evening even as loading of currencies were progressing in the rest. The bank focused on ATMs attached to branches with predominantly salary accounts, like the one near Infopark, expecting more withdrawals from such machines.

An official of the Union Bank claimed that most of the bank’s ATMs were operational on the day.

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