NEW DELHI : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Saturday asked the banks to continue to allow the existing customers to withdraw cash up to Rs 24,000 per week from their savings account until further instructions. Banks, however, do not have sufficient cash and hence the branch managers are imposing their own limits on the withdrawals.
The new notification also puts a rider that the limit of Rs 24,000 so fixed includes withdrawals made from the ATMs during the week. For instance, if you have withdrawn Rs 4000 from ATM in two instances during the week, you cannot draw more than Rs 20,000. Through a notification on November 20, the RBI had fixed the daily ATM withdrawal limits to Rs 2,500 where the ATMs are calibrated and Rs 2,000 in other ATMs.
The weekly limit of Rs 24,000 was fixed by the RBI only up to November 24 and it was on this ground that Delhi High Court on Friday refused to pass any order on a PIL, saying there is no more limit and hence no order for higher withdrawals is required. Since the banks are getting limited money that is far short of the demand, none is honouring cheques of Rs 24,000. They are mostly giving only Rs 2,000 notes as another new note of Rs 500 has not reached most of the banks. On advice from their top bosses, most of the bank branches in Delhi could be seen engaging all staff in sorting out the soiled notes of Rs 100, 50, 20 and 10 in their chests and giving them to the customers who insist on the smaller denomination notes and willing to accept even the soiled notes. A bank manager said these soiled notes were kept for return to the RBI, but they are being put back in the circulation to meet the acute currency crunch. Since all bank employees are busy with the soiled notes’ sorting, all other regular banking activities are at a standstill.
