Dried up banks irk customers in Kochi

Kochi: On the second day of the salary, even banks in city areas completely dried up. Branches of leading banks like State Bank of India and State Bank of Travancore displayed ‘no cash’ boards from the morning and customers found it very tough to deposit cash in ATMs. Customers were furious and upset over the acute shortage of currency. “On Friday morning, I went to SBI Kundanoor to withdraw the allotted quota of Rs 24000. But I was greeted by ‘No cash’ boards at the counters. When I enquired, I was told that they were trying to get enough currency and special staff had been deputed for the purpose,” said Easwaran Namboothiri, a retired bank employee.

SBI had to manage with the very limited amount of Rs 50 crore it receives every alternative day for its 150 branches and over 400 ATMs in Ernakulam, Kottayam and Idukki districts. In many branches, bank officials were seen pacifying customers when they could not provide them the allotted quota of Rs 24,000. The situation was grimmer in rural areas. “I came to the Federal bank branch at Paravur by 10 am. But the staff said that cash would be given initially to those who were given tokens yesterday. After the token holders received cash, there was no cash to dispense to all those standing in queue. Fortunately, I could get Rs 10, 000,” said Mohan Kumar, a government employee.

Though most of the ATMs have only Rs 2000 notes, smaller denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 100 were in adequate supply at bank counters. Meanwhile, the district treasury operated smoothly on Friday as it received the requested fund for the day’s transactions. However, the situation in sub treasuries was not good because of very limited cash. The district treasury at Kakkanad received the full amount of Rs 83 lakh it requested for the day. Transactions worth Rs 74 lakh have been done at the Kakkanad treasury which witnessed a normal turnout. However, the Ernakulam sub treasury, which is one of the busiest ones in the State, received only Rs 50 lakh from the SBT treasury branch as against Rs. 80 lakh it had requested.