Indore: The cash crunch has hit the city, which brought back memories of mad rush of people in banks after demonetisation was announced by centre one and half years ago. The residents felt the pinch as the wedding season is on and there is short supply of currency notes of Rs 2,000.
According to sources, State Bank of India is receiving 25% of the total cash of its daily requirement from Reserve Bank of India for past three days. The situation in the city is not different from northern Indian states and Odisha. The shortage of the cash in the banks specially in SBI worsened on Tuesday due to sudden rise of cash demand and short supply of cash from RBI.
A senior bank official said the daily requirement of the currency notes at SBI branches in Indore district stands at Rs 50 crore, followed by Bank of India, which is Rs 30 crore per day. The short fall in the supply was reflected at ATMs of SBI on Tuesday. There are about 2200 ATMs of all the banks in the district, out of which 1900 are operational. SBI has 1700 ATMs followed by 179 of BOI.
Most of the SBI ATMs had stopped dispensation of the currency notes. By noon, the situation created a panic among SBI officials and customers. Later in the day, the bank managed funds from currency chest and small banks. As a result, the withdrawal limit at SBI ATMs was reduced from Rs 10,000 to Rs 4,000. Only half of ATMs were operational in afternoon with cash withdrawal limit in force. P K Balaji, SBI deputy general manager, refuse to comment, when contacted by Free Press. The ATMs of the other banks worked in normal manner.
“Presently, the supply of the cash currency from RBI is short. Currency chest is distributing less cash. As soon as the supply from RBI will improve, the availability of cash will also improve”, said Mukesh Bhatt, lead district manager (Bank of India), Indore.