A 75-year-old retired employee, S K Moulali died in a private hospital on Wednesday in Guntur, a day after he collapsed while standing in a bank queue to withdraw cash.
Moulali retired 10 years ago after working as a peon at a social welfare hostel in Macherla of Guntur district and was living in PWD colony of Macherla with his family.
He had been visiting an SBI branch at Macherla for the past 10 days to withdraw his pension, as that was his only source of income.
Due to the cash crisis for the past one month, he had been returning home empty-handed every day.
On Tuesday, while standing in the queue of the SBI bank for a few hours, he complained of chest pain and collapsed. People rushed him to a nearby private hospital and informed his family.
The New Indian Express report said that he suffered a cardiac arrest, while the doctor asked the family members to take him to Narasaraopet.
Already facing a shortage of cash, the family managed to collect money from neighbours and took him to a private hospital in Narasaraopet but his life couldn’t be saved.
According to the family, Moulali would have survived had there been no delay in treatment.
The death of Moulali created quite a stir with several customers, particularly pensioners, asking banks to provide a separate counter for the elderly people.
It was reported that the bank later set up additional counters considering the situation and allowed pensioners to withdraw money up to Rs.10,000.