New Delhi: Anger rose among millions of Indians who are running out of cash after Tuesday’s demonetisation of high-value notes, as the government said it would take “two to three weeks” to fix the 2 lakh-odd ATMs to cope with the currency shake-up.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday that the government did not go for prior recalibration of ATMs because it wanted to keep the move to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes a secret to ramp up India’s fight against black money. “Prior calibration would have given the whole game away,” said Mr Jaitley, even as wilting banks and ATMs battled winding queues, scuffles and minor stampedes for a third straight day.
Banks would remain open over the weekend but the crisis may deepen on Monday when they would be shut in some parts of the country due to holidays. Many families comprising even the elderly jostled in lines to improve their chances of exchanging or withdrawing money.
Thousands fixing ATMs, says Jaitley
Either ATMs are unable to meet a spiraling demand for cash or they cannot dispense the new bills. Traders in many areas downed shutters, threatening to grind large parts of India's cash-driven economy to a halt, and grocers charged exorbitant prices. Frustrated weekend crowds struggled to pay for food, fuel and other daily needs in a chaos that began on Wednesday, a day after the government spiked 86% of Indian currency notes worth Rs 14 lakh crore.
“The crowd is five times more than what we saw on the first day,” said a bank manager in Delhi. So far there have been reports of five deaths in the ongoing chaos across states despite a heavy police presence at banks and ATMs. Much of India's rural economy is powered by cash transactions with few people having bank accounts or operating one even if they have an account.
Mr Jaitely regretted the inconvenience and appealed to people not to crowd banks to deposit invalid notes as the window for doing so is open till December 30. Rs 2 lakh crore has so far been deposited in all banks. The minister said thousands of people are busy fixing the ATM problem, and there is enough cash to tide over the problem. About 25% of old notes are yet to be taken out of ATMs.
