PSU bank, Kidderpore
Requirement: Rs 30 lakh
Supply: Rs 15 lakh
Private bank, Moulali
Requirement: Rs 1 crore
Supply: Rs 30 lakh
If ghost "noters" have made bank queues longer in Calcutta, another "g" is adding to the woes of citizens lining up to exchange or withdraw currency: the gap between demand and supply.
Officials of banks across Calcutta said they had been consistently receiving less than a third of the cash required to match the expected volume of withdrawals.
Whenever a bank has received cash close to the amount it had requisitioned from the RBI, it has been mostly in notes of Rs 2,000 denomination. The majority of customers don't want these notes, of course. "A Rs 2,000 note in the pocket is almost like having a Rs 1,000 note that can't be used. Who will give change if you give a Rs 2,000 note for a purchase of Rs 400?" said an elderly man.
Whenever short of cash to dispense, some banks have allegedly been giving preference to account holders for exchange of notes. "We are working overtime. We are ready to cater to all customers, but where is the cash? My appeal to the government is to give us more cash. We will manage the rest," the manager of a nationalised bank's Kidderpore branch told Metro.
On Thursday, this branch was forced to turn away even some account holders. "Since these people will be back the next morning, the queue will be even longer when we reopen," the manager said.
Some banks suspended exchange of notes on Thursday by citing a shortage of indelible ink.
A branch usually sends a cash requisition to the bank's currency chest every evening. The RBI sends currency to the bank chest based on demand, which is the sum of requisitions made by all the branches of that bank within the city.
Given the demand-supply gap, coaxing customers into withdrawing less is the only thing banks can do. "If my branch has Rs 5 lakh and 20 account holders withdraw Rs 24,000 each (the new limit), we will run out of cash. If they draw cheques for Rs 10,000 each, we can distribute the available cash among 50 people," said a bank manager.
