Hyderabad: Banks across the city were inundated by depositors on Thursday. Customers in Hyderabad deposited about Rs 943 crore in nearly 1.5 lakh transactions till 4 pm. Sources in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that the figure would be Rs 50 crore more by the end of the day.
Sources said each of the nearly 1,000 bank branches in the city received deposits of around Rs 95 lakh till 4 pm. “The highest single deposit was Rs 22 lakh, and about 1,200 deposits were more than Rs 10 lakh. The remaining were below Rs 10 lakh. The Indian Banks Association may announce the total number of deposits and amount on Friday,” said the source.
Major branches in the city saw 10 times more deposits than normal.
Secretary for All India Bank Employees Association B. Seetha Rambabu, said that about Rs 100 crore was exchanged with old currency on Thursday in GHMC limits.
“About 2.5 lakh people utilised the services of exchange counters. At most branches, the cash chests were empty by afternoon. We asked the RBI for arranging necessary amounts to handle the crowd at exchange counters at banks,” he said.
Based on Thursday’s experience, Mr Rambabu said, “Each bank requires about Rs 11 crore to Rs 15 crore of lower denomination currency. On day 1, most customers refused to take Rs 2,000 notes. In view of customers’ convenience, the RBI should issue lower denomination currencies as they are not getting change outside.”
Another bank official said that due to the rush, the process of uploading information to the RBI server was delayed. “We insisted that staff clear the uploads from 6 pm to 8 pm. We are taking steps to overcome such problems on Friday,” he official said.
Except big branches of major banks like ICICI-Khairatabad, SBI-Secun-derabad, SBH-Secunde-rabad, SBI-Saifabad and Allahabad Bank-Himay-atnagar, most branches utilised single counters for cash deposits and currency exchange, which led to inconvenience to customers.
Hours for Rs 4,000, people want more
Ill-informed bank staff created problems for people who flocked to the banks on Thursday to exchange or deposit Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Added to this, the failure of the RBI to ensure adequate currency led to chaos at many branches. People were stood for hours for Rs 4,000.
Many bank staff insisted only on Aadhaar cards while regulations say that any ID proof issued by the government is enough. At many branches, there was no one to assist those who needed help in filling the requisition forms for exchange of cash. Also, no arrangements had been made for senior citizens and physically challenged who faced hardships due to stampede-like situations.
It was also revealed that most of the banks had not received the new currency denominations. Many banks received only the new Rs 2,000 notes, which customers refused to accept fearing problems with change.
Each bank was supplied about Rs 30 lakh, which ran out in no time. People demanded an increase of the limit at least to Rs 10,000. “I had to spend six hours after applying for leave from my office just to get Rs 4,000, which is not sufficient even to pay my house rent of Rs 15,000. I have to come to bank again tomorrow,” said Mr G. Naga Sridhar, an employee from Himayatnagar.
