Bengaluru: No one's sleeping in Chickpet tonight

Bengaluru: For the first time since this buzzing marketplace became the commercial hub of Bengaluru, the place that you went to buy anything and everything, from Conjeevaram and rich Benarasi saris to glass bangles and gold, as well as potted plants and hardware, pipes and copper wiring, the silence of the empty streets was eerie.

Six days after PM Modi’s shock demonetisation, business was down to zero.
This is where cash was the lingua franca, the language of commerce, of hard bargains and yes, the famed stash of unaccounted, filthy lucre.

Little wonder that our sources are telling us that in the last 48 hours, with wholesale vendors and many of the hawala operators here, finding it well nigh impossible to convert old notes into new, around 2,500 applications for new PAN cards were submitted by a group of vendors.

“Every one is ready to offer upto 50% of the cash to their staff if they could able to covert the cash. As a result, every one here is rushing to get PAN cards. Generally these staff families are from economically poor families and this denomination process is expected to change their luck,” explained a PAN card and Insurance agent from Mysore Bank circle of the city.  The warren of streets may have gone silent, but no-one's sleeping just yet.

Day 6: ATM woes don’t end
The currency crisis is going from bad to worse in Bengaluru with many ATMs not dispensing cash on Monday and those which had money, running dry by 2 pm. Queues as long as a km could be seen at ATMs.

The lucky few who could reach ATMs in time before the cash was exhausted, received Rs 2,000 notes which are worthless in the current situation with shopkeepers not having the required change.

Even people, who frantically went in search of open ATMs in the late evening, were greeted by half downed shutters and ‘No Cash’ signboards. Attendance at colleges has dropped with students spending their time in queues depositing and withdrawing cash, at a commission of course!