Chaotic scenes and long queues were seen outside banks and ATMs, as people hustled to get valid currency for meeting their daily expenses on Wednesday.
Most of the cash dispensing machines ran out of cash within hours after being stocked, while thousands of ATMs are still not functional. Adding to the customer woes, there have been reports of bank servers facing technical glitches.
Even ATMs at the Finance Ministry and the Parliament House witnessed long queues with average waiting time of an hour.
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It may take two more weeks before ATMs start dispensing new Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 notes. Currently, they are mainly dispensing Rs. 100 notes.
More and more people across the country are complaining about problems with regard to their daily basic needs as local stores have stopped lending goods and other essential items on credit.
Grappling with unending queues and frayed tempers in banks and to check operation of syndicates, the government on Tuesday decided to introduce a system of marking customers exchanging defunct currency with indelible ink from Wednesday in major metros.
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This, according to the government, would prevent syndicates and certain people coming to a branch again and again and misusing the note-exchange facility.