Amidst the ongoing cash crunch across India, a number of ATMS across Kashmir were out of currency notes on Tuesday.
Scores of ATMs in the Srinagar city were out of cash with banks failing to refill the currency notes due to ‘temporary shortage of cash’ which is felt across India.
The shortfall in demand and supply of currency notes mainly in ATMs caused inconvenience to the people in the state.
“I had to travel 2 km to fetch money for buying medicines for my mother who is admitted in SKIMS hospital. Even ATM inside the premises of the hospital was dry forcing patients and their attendants to suffer,” said Javid Ahmad Mir, a Soura resident.
The situation in the city centre Lal Chowk and commercial hub Karan Nagar was similar with majority of the ATMs running dry. Whereas, at some ATMs where cash was available huge rush of customers was witnessed.
“After waiting for half an hour, I had to run empty handed as the ATMs in Lal Chowk have no or less cash leading to chaos and confusion,” said Imtiyaz Ahmad, a resident of Karan Nagar.
A senior State Bank of India executive admitted that repercussion of cash crunch across India is also felt in Kashmir. “We cannot deny the fact that there is less cash flow. But situation is not alarming like what is felt in other parts of the country.”
In-charge corporate communication, J&K Bank, Sajjad Bazaz said there is shortfall in supply of cash in ATMs due to three consecutive bank holidays which were observed during last week.
“As banks remained closed, customers disbursed only money from ATMs which caused shortage,” he said adding that “now with opening of bank branches this would end.”
The Department of Economic Affairs has assured the matter will be resolved soon with the raise in production of Rs 500 notes.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may either be holding back Rs 2,000 notes or could have stopped printing high denomination currency, an SBI Research report published last year had said.
“We print about 500 crore of Rs 500 notes per day. We have taken steps to raise this production five times. In next couple of days, we’ll have supply of about 2500 crore of Rs 500 notes per day. In a month, supply would be about 70,000-75,000 crore,” SC Garg, Secretary, Dept of Economic Affairs had said.