The 50 shades of pink

Hyderabad: The government’s much vaunted 50-day deadline for ending the cash shortage, has come and gone but there is little improvement in the situation. Banks are still short of cash after demonetisation.

Customers of smaller branches are now being allowed to withdraw up to Rs 8,000, which is marginally better than the Rs 2,000-Rs 3,000 cap arbitrarily imposed by cash starved banks last month, though the government has upped the withdrawal limit to Rs 24,000.

The Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Bank Employees’ Federation estimates that 70 per cent of the actual required cash is being supplied to small branches and bank staff are dispensing it on the pro rata basis.

The Federation’s vice- president V. Madhusudhan said that the circulation of currency in Hyderabad has increased by 20 per cent compared to the first week of December.

“We have increased the withdrawal cap as we get sufficient currency, but still we are unable to give a customer Rs 24,000 at a time as per the guidelines of the RBI. But bankers are adjusting current account holders to provide Rs 50,000 withdrawals per week,” he said.

There is no change in the situation of ATMs in the city. About 60 per cent of ATMs out of 1,500 within GHMC have been recalibrated but due to technical errors, very few are functioning. The Federation’s secretary M.S. Kumar said that nodal branches of banks are uploading cash in ATMs in the evening hours.

Banks are scapegoat: Unions
Bank unions have asked the government to order a CBI inquiry into the leakage of the new currency. Speaking to this newspaper, Vishwas Utagi, of the AIBEA said the RBI has been giving more money to the private sector banks than the public sector banks.

He also points out that till today the cooperative banks have not got a single paise, and they could have helped to ease the burden and hassles people in rural areas are facing.

“The frequent news that huge amounts of new currency notes are detected with some big people is creating suspicion on bank staff. Ordi-nary bank branches or staff cannot do this because they have been supplied with limited cash and the computer system will not permit such a huge withdrawal,” Moneylife quoted Ch Venkatachalam, general secretary of AIBEA, as saying.

He further reportedly found fault with private contractors of ATMs as they don’t maintain a record of money they receive. “RBI is also not providing det-ails of cash supplied to each bank or bank bra-nch and to ATM contractors. Why is there is no transparency,” he questions.