Customers throng ATMs, banks in Thrissur

Thrissur: There has been no respite for the people from the huge rush witnessed in banks and ATMs following the demonetisation of 500  and 1,000 currency notes three days ago. Only a few ATMs of public sector banks functioned on Saturday though they had assured on Friday that all the ATMs would be open. The branches of  private sector banks like ICICI, Axis and HDFC in the town exchanged notes of Rs 2,000, 100, 50, 20 and 10,  but they ran out of stock by afternoon.

The SBI head office at Naduvilal and SBT office near Paramekkavu witnessed heavy rush of customers for remittance, withdrawals and exchange of old notes. The e-lobby of the SBI at Naduvilal had long  queues before  the ATM as it was repeatedly filled by the technicians and SBI staff of  the head office adjacent to it. 

The SBI head office also had a long queue for withdrawals and  over  500 tokens were issued by noon. The ATM of district co-operate bank near Banerjee Club on Swaraj Round and another  at Kolothumpadam functioned till they were emptied.  Sources told DC that the  flow of currency was improving  from the note minting centre of the RBI in Mysore to all states in South India.