Chennai: Prime minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation drive hit a roadblock in Chennai on Thursday with several private and nationalised banks turning away public, who thronged to deposit and withdraw the scrapped currencies. “I have issued a cheque and it will get bounced tomorrow if I do not deposit cash in my account”, screamed an account holder with an ICICI branch in Purasawalkam.
“Please don’t argue, no more, cash transactions for the day, come tomorrow,” responded a bank supervisor manning the queue. “Why are you closing the bank by 4.30, you are supposed to be open till 7 in the evening, allow me inside” argued Mr S. Ezhumalai at the Indian Overseas Bank, Doveton. “When I came in the morning, the security insisted me to come in the evening for exchange of notes. Again, when I visited the bank by 4 pm, the bank staff turned me away”, he rued.
“For the past one week all our banking operations had completely crippled and it has been decided to clear the pending workload and serve our account holders. If we continue to encourage the crowd, all our counters will be exchanging invalid notes till December 31 and I don’t see an end to this issue”, rued a nationalised bank branch manager wishing not to be named.
Till Wednesday, I arranged for drinking water, shamianas for the waiting crowd and made announcements through the loudspeaker to facilitate the crowd spending out of my pocket and this is not the job of a bank manager, he added, when DC contacted for his response.
