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Patna, Sept. 14: ATM (automated teller machine) is popularly interpreted as “any time money”. Account holders still thank financial institu-tions for sparing them the hassle of queuing up at the bank counter for withdrawing money.
ATMs were started across the country with the idea to make monetary transactions easier for account holders and also to cut down the rush at the banks.
In Patna, however, to make use of this facility, one has to venture out in the night or in the early hours.
In peak hours, most ATM booths in capital are either crowded or out of order.
When ATMs were first introduced in Bihar, it was a dream come true for most account holders.
Now the situation seems to have turned around. People are forced to queue up outside ATM booths as the rush is massive. At times, people have to wait for 30 minutes outside ATM booths to check their account balance.
Even more annoying are the boards of “machine out of order” hung over the ATM shutters.
Given such a situation, card-holders are finding it easier to go to the bank and carry out the monetary transactions.
S.K. Sinha, channel manager, State Bank of India (SBI), Patna, said: “Problem usually arises when a number of customers have access to single ATM counter. Banks should set up ATMs taking into consideration the population density of a particular area. In areas where the number of residents is more, the banks should have at least two to three ATM counters.”
According to Sinha, if more ATMs are installed in populated areas, the problem of shortage of cash and long queues would not arise.
Sinha said steps are being taken to tackle the crisis. The SBI has installed five machine in its Gandhi Maidan centre. Also in Boring Road area, the number of machine would go up to three, he informed.
Another official from the SBI, who did not want to be identified, said: “ATMs were introduced to make money available to people anytime. But nowadays, many booths run out of money at peak hours. We have more number of ATMs as compared to other banks, but the rush is so much that the money finishes very soon. One more reason behind this is that customers from other banks also come to our ATM centres since we have opened booths even in remote areas. Our CAC (Cash Administrative Cell) is centralised and keeps a check from morning till evening that all the ATMs have cash. We are trying our best to improve conditions and are taking all possible steps.”
Non-resident Indian Divya Prakash said banks ignore the maintenance of ATMs booths. According to him: “Banks simply brought the concept of ATMs but did not care about the ease of the customers.” Sharing his experience, Divya said once he had to go to Frazer Road from Nala Road in search of a working ATM.
He often comes across long queues, out-of-cash and out-of-order machines when he goes to the nearest ATM.
Psychologist Dr Dinesh Kumar is worried because of the poor handling of ATMs. He said: “It is very irritating when people have to keep on waiting outside and a father or a husband inside is seen training his son or wife how to handle the ATM card. In fact, I have now stopped going to ATM centres. I prefer going to my bank and draw money through pay slip. We hardly come across shortage of cash there. And of course, representatives sitting at the counters, do realise the importance of our time.”
A teacher told The Telegraph: “Banks have provided its customers with ATM cards but number of ATM centres is too less. Especially, after banks allowed inter-bank ATM cash withdrawal system for the first five transactions in a month without any service charge, the situation has become worse. It is seen that if a particular bank’s ATM is out of order, then customers start forming long queues outside the ATM centre of another bank. This adds to the crowd.”
Abhijeet Upadhyay, deputy manager and ATM co-ordinator, HDFC, Bihar-Jharkhand, said: “The bank has around 1,10,000 ATM card-holders in Patna and a total of 20 ATM booths.”
He further said that 10 ATM centres are on off-side locations and the rest are located near the branches.
