All ATMs in India need to be calibrated afresh according to their weight, dimensions, design, and security features and this process may take over a month, experts told IANS .
ATMs and their cash trays so far were mainly made to dispense 100 and now—spiked 500 and 1,000 rupee notes. The two high denomination notes were declared illegal by the government on November 8.
Experts said since the new Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 notes would be different in size and shape from the old ones and engineers would have to readjust the cash trays, or cassettes, and the software running the machines.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the media on Saturday that “the finance ministry is constantly monitoring the cash replacement exercise.”
Asked why the government had not recalibrated the machines in advance, Mr. Jaitley said it would have defeated the purpose “to maintain secrecy” of the surprise move.
Rajiv Kaul, CEO and Vice-Chairman at CMS, a cash management company, told IANS on email that the immediate focus after the government’s decision was to flush out the spiked currency notes from the machines.
The second step would be to replenish the machines with new notes.
But before that, they had to “ensure every ATM recognises the new notes and manages multiple replenishments including those of lower denominations,” Mr. Kaul said.
Anuj Chauhan, a banker in Delhi, said a technician has to physically visit an ATM for reconfiguration that would normally take about four hours for each machine.
That means the reconfiguration of all two lakh machines would take about 8,00,000 man hours.
If a technician completes two ATMs a day, companies managing the machines would all together need some 4,000 trained technicians to complete the process in 30 days. Finding them would be another challenge.
