Banks buzz with pay-day business

The rush at ATMs and banks on the last day of the month kept officials busy on Wednesday even as trade and business in Nashik gradually began returning to normalcy.
Citizens made a beeline outside ATMs and banks to withdraw and were able to get money after a wait of 20-30 minutes.
A majority of the ATMs in the city were operational and the remaining were shut.The crowd at the banks is expected to grow from Thursday as government and other private employees will get their salaries.
The banks are allowing customers to withdraw Rs 24,000 at a time from the saving accounts. In addition, the arrival of the new Rs 500 notes, though in lesser volume, has eased pressure on the banks.
“I withdrew Rs 24,000 from the saving accounts of my bank after waiting in queue for half-an-hour. I got denominations of both Rs 2,000 and Rs 100. But ATMs are dispensing only Rs 2,000 per day. This limit needs to be increased so that we need not go to banks for withdrawal,” said Sachin Khairnar.
A senior bank official told TOI on Wednesday that they were getting cash from the RBI, not in bulk but in phases. “We are giving Rs 24,000 at a time to account-holders of saving banks and Rs 50,000 on current accounts per week,” he said.
He added, “The new notes of Rs 500 are also being issued, but they are still in low volume. The RBI is issuing more new notes of Rs 500. The rush of people is expected to increase from Thursday as they will start getting salaries. The rush is expected to last till December 15 at the banks as people will withdraw money from their salaries.”
Trade and business had been badly affected and declined to 30-40% due to shortage of valid currency notes after demonetisation. Now, most retailers have started providing debit/credit card facilities to customers, helping the business get back to normalcy.
Prafulla Sancheti, president, Nashik City Traders’ Federation (NCTF), said, “The trade and business has almost returned to normalcy and businesses have recovered upto 80%. There is adequate ‘change’ of currency available in the markets. Retailers and wholesalers have also bought point-of-sale (PoS) machines to provide debit/credit card facilities to their customers. This has helped the traders and customers.”
He added, “There are still complaints from customers about the dry ATMs. The banks need to start full-fledged ATM operations. We hope the situation will return be completely back to normal in a week.”
Ashok Raut, an official from Tata Docomo store, said around nine of every 10 customers would pay their bills through debit and credit cards during the initial days of demonetisation, but now, four of every ten people are paying bills by cash. “This shows the situation is returning to normalcy. The rush of people to pay bills has also increased in past three-four days,” he said.
An official from a city’s major hyper market said, “A majority of our business come through debit and credit cards, while the reaming is done through cash. Our business was affected during the first two weeks after demonetisation, but the situation had improved in the past few days.”
Prasad Kadam, owner of advertising firm, said the availability of cash in ATMs has helped citizens but more Rs 500 notes need to be brought in circulation. “Banks need to issues maximum number of Rs 500 notes, which will help the business to return to complete normalcy. Today, I withdrew Rs 50,000 from my current account and got both Rs 2,000 and Rs 100 denominations,” he said.