Hyderabad: With Ramzan shopping reaching its crescendo ahead of Id-ul-Fitr later this week, many ATMs across the Old City have gone dry in the last two days. There are about 200 ATM kiosks in the Old City including in thickly populated areas of Vattetpally, Bhavaninagar, Tadban, Chandrayangutta, Tappachabutra and Kishanbagh.
“There is literally no cash for the last two days at almost 80 per cent of the ATMs. Long queues are seen at the banks as people are rushing to withdraw cash,” said Dr Saleemuddin who practices Unani medicine.
“The cash agencies replenished the ATMs on Friday night at Falaknuma. I withdrew some amount in hope of withdrawing some more the next morning when I planned to make some purchases. On Saturday morning the machine was not dispensing cash,” said Mr Mohd Adnan, a non-resident Indian who came to celebrate Id-ul-Fitr with his family here.
“I visited several ATMs at Falaknuma, Shamsheergunj and Jahanuma and adjoining areas but the situation was the same,” he complained.
A few shopkeepers and fuel station owners are coming forward to help out people by swiping their credit and debit cards on their Point of Sale (PoS) machines and dispensing cash.
“Of course, they are doing it for a commission. For Rs 5,000 they are taking a commission of Rs 100 for debit cards while for the credit card it is more,” Mr M.A. Rasheed, an advocate from Falaknuma, told this newspaper.
Most of the shop keepers in the business centres of the Old City still prefer to make transactions in cash over the option of online or card payments for various reasons.
“In the run-up to the festival, several small purchases have to be made. For articles costing about Rs 100 and Rs 200 we cannot make card payments even if the hawkers or vendors have point of sale machines,” said a buyer in the market. “The bigger shops have not yet switched over to the PoS or credit card payment option,” he said.
MBT leader Amjedullah Khan said that the RBI should immediately understand the problem and replenish the ATMs with cash on a priority basis in the Old City.
