Bank officials claim the cash rush in Patna is showing signs of easing but with 50 per cent of ATMs non-functional in the city, residents are running all over for money.
The Telegraph, on a round of the city, on Friday found half of the ATMs non-functional. While some have been so for few months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation drive has sent some of them out of order, some out of service and some with no cash at all.
Keshri Nagar resident Sanjay Sahu went to nearby Patel Nagar for a functional ATM only to return empty handed.
Patel Nagar, on the northern fringes of Patna, has eight ATMs of different banks. The SBI ATM was the only one working on Friday morning, while rest of the seven ATMs had boards of "no cash" hanging outside.
Residents of Patel Nagar, Rajvanshi Nagar and Electricity Board Colony among other localities come to these eight ATMs for cash. Sanjay Sahu said: "I came all the way from Keshri Nagar to withdraw cash as all the ATMs in Keshri Nagar and Patel Nagar have run dry."
This is quite contrary to banks' claim that the cash situation has improved in Patna with ATMs dispensing cash. The ones on the main roads and at important roundabouts are, but for the ATMs in the interior localities, it's a different story.
At Bhoothnath Road near Pani Tanki, there are four ATMs - of ICICI Bank, HDFC, Central Bank of India and IndusInd Bank - in a row. All of them were out of cash on Friday afternoon.
"In the past one week, the ATM is closed for most part of the day as the cash is exhausted," said the guard at ICICI Bank. "The agency assigned to fill cash in the ATM does it in the morning but by afternoon, everything is gone."
Before demonetisation, ATMs typically stored notes valued at Rs 8-9 lakh in denominations of Rs 100, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.
Following Modi's announcement last week, the RBI instructed banks to fill ATMs with only Rs 100 notes. This means that number of notes per transaction is higher and the ATMs are running out of cash faster even with a limit of Rs 2,500 per card a day.
The situation is the same at Hanuman Nagar, Kanti Factory Road and Kankerbagh. Long queues were spotted outside the Canara Bank and State Bank of India ATMs at Rajendra Nagar roundabout. There are other ATMs of ICICI bank, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC in the same area.
"Though the banks and the government claim the situation has improved, you can easily see the long queue of customers," Amit Shukla said, standing outside the Canara Bank ATM. "Most of the ATMs that are functioning are either located outside bank branches or are strategically located on the main roads or at roundabouts."
State Bank of India has around 3,000 ATMs in Patna circle (Bihar-Jharkhand), but 1,018 ATMs were not functioning till 4pm on Friday. In Patna district, SBI has 324 ATMs but 110 were inactive. Sources at the bank said the ATMs are not functioning because of shortage of cash or technical errors.
Reserve Bank of India sources say around 50 per cent of ATMs are functioning in Bihar. The main problem affecting the rest deals with logistics problem and technical glitches in recalibrating the ATMs with Rs 2,000 notes.
"We will try to recalibrate ATMs with Rs 500 notes from Saturday," said Anand Bikram, SBI additional general manager (ATM operations). "Once the ATMs are re-calibrated, the rush at banks and ATMs will automatically come down."
At a time the ATMs are failing to dispense cash, the government's Thursday night decision - to allow petrol pumps to dispense Rs 2,000 in cash to customers against a swipe of their debit cards in SBI machines - has fallen flat in Patna.
P.K. Singh, the president of Bihar Petroleum Association, said: "The system of providing cash by swiping debit cards did not start on Friday because of a technical glitch. The association had a talk with SBI officials in this connection."
The facility is supposed to be available at 2,500 petrol pumps run by public sector oil companies in the country.
Another problem is bringing the cash to the petrol pumps. Singh said carrying cash from the banks to the petrol pumps is a big security concern and the petrol pumps are pressing banks to supply cash at the outlets.
The State Bank of India and the petroleum association also have to reach a consensus on the supply of lower denomination notes.
Sources said the system will be primarily introduced in rural areas where there are not too many banks but different petrol pump outlets are reluctant to abide by the government decision because of security reasons.
