As the country grapples with the demonitisation of old Rs.500 and Rs.1000 currency notes, ATMs are supposed to provide currency notes of Rs.100 and Rs.50 from today, after a nationwide shutdown of two days.
But most people who lined up at different ATM kiosks were left disappointed as many of them remained non-functional.
Here, a top official with an ATM manufacturer explains the delay in getting the ATMs online.
“All the ATM ‘cassettes’ have to be manually configured to hold the incoming Rs. 100 notes and also the new notes to be issued in Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 denominations. Cassettes are “boxes” fitted inside the ATM to dispense cash to customers.”
“Most ATMs in India have four separate cassettes to hold different denominations of cash, their configurations vary as per the currency they hold. Till now, most ATMs held two cassettes for Rs. 100 notes and one each for Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes. Now, this configuration will have to be changed manually. So we’ll have to send technicians to all the ATMs in the country to make the desired change,” says Navroze Dastur, Managing Director, NCR Corporation, India & South Asia.
