Bhubaneswar, Nov. 22: Balaram Marandi, 53, an ex-serviceman, was disappointed after being unable to get money at a petrol pump in the city by swiping his debit card as promised.

Not just Marandi, but several other customers carried their angst back home as they were refused cash at filling stations. Most had turned up on reading news reports about the Centre's decision to allow a few select petrol pumps to disburse cash against debit cards. The maximum that a petrol pump can dispense in a day had been fixed at Rs 1 lakh.

Marandi said: "Most of the ATMs in the capital city go dry within two to three hours. Today, I tried my luck at nearly six ATMs, but failed to withdraw cash. Then I went to a petrol pump to get some cash by swiping my debit card. But I could not get it there as well."

Like Marandi, who desperately wanted cash to repair his house, many others wondered why the November 17 announcement that petrol pumps would be allowed to dispense Rs 2,000 cash to people with debit cards, could not be implemented. "I am surprised. Though five days have been passed since the announcement, not a single petrol pump is able to dispense cash," said another customer Papu Pradhan, 42, a businessman at Unit-I Market.

Sources said petrol pumps were helpless in the matter as banks refused to provide them with cash. Former president of the State Bank Officers' Association Ganesh Chandra Mishra said: "As there are no clear-cut guidelines on remittance of money, banks as well as the retail petrol outlets are reluctant to help customers."

Petrol Pump Owners' Association president Sanjay Lath said: "We are not getting any co-operation from the banks. We have recalibrated our point of sale machines and also announced that the money would be disbursed to the public. We had also instructed our staff members accordingly. But at the last moment, the banks did not give us the money."

Lath said the banks, instead of providing money to the petrol pumps, asked them to disburse money to customers from their sale proceeds. "We are facing cash shortage. How can we dispense cash without help from banks? A lot of confusion prevails," he said, adding that petrol pumps were promised Rs 5 per transaction.

"We are still ready to help people in the larger interest of the country, but we have been unable to do this because of the lack of co-operation from banks. We have approached the banks and hope things will be sorted out shortly," Lath said.

An official of the pump owner's association said the bank should also provide them lower denomination notes of Rs 100 and Rs 50. "Sometimes the customers are giving us Rs 2,000 notes for just one litre of petrol. This is causing us a lot of inconvenience," he said.

Sources said many petrol pumps were hesitant to carry out the scheme as banks were asking them to make their own arrangements for carrying the cash up to Rs 1 lakh for each filling station.

"At whose risk will we carry such a huge amount of cash? If some untoward incidents take place, who will be responsible? The banks should arrange for transportation of cash to the petrol pumps instead of other way round," said a petrol pump owner.