Bank customers hit due to cash crisis in ATMs

Our Correspondent

MANGALDAI, April 8: The new fincial year is not going to be friendly for the bank customers of Mangaldai as customers have been facing a tough time in withdrawal of cash from their bank accounts through ATMs. Customers are seen running from one ATM booth to another or joining the long queues before ATM booths since the last few days. The customers standing in a long queue at 8 am on Thursday in the main branch of SBI at Mangaldai, after finding all the ATMs cashless, expressed strong resentment.

“I have been moving from one ATM to another for the last four days without any success,” said Eman Ali, a teacher by profession while talking to The Sentinel. Similarly Prab Saha, a leading entrepreneur and proprietor of a book stall, reiterated that this situation had been prevailing for almost a week and had adversely affected their business. “Due to the crisis of cash in the ATMs for the last one week, our business has been badly hit,” he lamented and urged the media to highlight this issue properly so that it grabs the attention of the government.

Meanwhile, a highly-placed source of SBI on condition of anonymity, informed that the situation had taken place due to non-receipt of adequate cash from the RBI since the month of November, even though necessary indent for cash requirement for the main branch of the SBI at Mangaldai has been placed before the RBI on a regular basis, besides regular communication over phone. However the SBI, Mangaldai is yet to receive sufficient cash against high demand of payments of the bank. “We are making payments through a total of 62 ATMs under the control of our branch and we need cash Rs 20 lakh for each of these ATMs,” the source divulged. “We are not sure whether RBI can fulfil our demand, since there is report that government had stopped printing of notes in the denomition of Rs. 2,000” he added.