Thiruvananthapuram: No senior citizens would have expected they would have to brave a 100-people-long queue on Saturday before they would get to exchange bank notes. Yet, 105 was the token number which 76-year-old G.B.S. Nair got at the Kaithamukku branch of a nationalised bank. He waited for an hour before heading for General Post Office. His voice was slightly wavery when he said, “There was no money to book gas, pay the paperboy and cable guy. Everything had been deposited into our account. There's no money in the ATMs. So when someone returned Rs 3,000, I rushed to the bank, and I had to wait in vain.”
The Kaithamukku branch had just one counter for everyone, including those who had come down to withdraw money from their accounts. There was a separate counter for remittances above Rs 30,000. Chandrasekharan Nair K., 66, whose token number was 150, said, “The elderly will have health problems and would need to take medicine and food on time. They cannot be expected to be in a queue for hours.” A water bubble top and fellow seniors seemed to be the only solace for some. “This exercise is futile as many are bringing their parents to exchange money,” he added.
Meanwhile, at GPO everyone had to pledge that they had not changed money before. Mercifully, the queue here was shorter. Still the elderly did not have a separate line here. When asked about this, deputy postmaster K. J. Dolimma said the government had not issued any order to post offices saying that only senior citizens should be allowed to exchange notes. GBS Nair could exchange only Rs 2,000. “Life is hard now. When the pension comes by November 30, I hear we can withdraw only up to Rs 24,000,” he said.
