Payday was a relatively smooth affair in district

COIMBATORE:

Payday

in the district turned out to be a relatively smooth affair on Thursday. Though many ATMs remained closed throughout the day, most banks had stocked enough cash to handle withdrawals on the salary day. The fact most industries pay salaries between 5th and 7th of every month and those who disbursed the same on Thursday did it through cheques and bank transfers made the queues at banks manageable.

R Sivagnanam

, who received a cheque for Rs8,500 as part of his pension on Thursday, has postponed his visit to the bank till Monday. “I know that there will be long queues in front of banks, so I just deposited my cheque in the morning,” said the former government employee. “However, as of Thursday noon, every one came out of banks with cash. While many pensioners have chosen to postpone withdrawals to Saturday and Monday, there didn’t seem to be much complaints,”

Sivagnanam

said.

The city being an industrial hub, with a large portion of it being medium and small-scale industries, the salary day is between 5th and 7th of a month. “We have not got any reports of problems in withdrawing cash because salary day is not on the 1st, and weekly salaries are paid on Saturday,” said

V Sundaram

, president of Coimbatore District Small Scale Industries Association.

“In fact, we feel that banks will face a tougher challenge towards the end of next week between Wednesday and Friday,” said

V Ravikumar

, president of Tirupur District Micro and Cottage Entrepreneur Association (COTMA).

Many industrialists choosing to pay by bank transfers and cheques is also expected to ease the situation mildly. “With the government not removing the withdrawal limit, we are unable to draw the required amount of cash,” said Ravikumar. “Though workers are not satisfied with bank transfers or cheques, because many do not have bank accounts yet or are not comfortable doing bank transactions, we have begun issuing cheques without an alternate way out,” he said.