Even as questions are being raised about the efficacy of the sudden withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in curbing black money, people are facing trouble in accessing money through ATMs.
Business dailies report that banks will take more time to re-configure all ATMs to dispense Rs 100, Rs 50 and Rs 2,000 denomination notes.
Quoting companies that deploy and manage ATMs, Mint reported that accessing cash has two dimensions: the quantum of money and logistic issues.
As the currency notes – Rs 100 – are in short supply, ATMs could run out of cash soon. Each ATM has three-four cassettes which hold cash, and are configured to dispense cash of a particular value.
Until now, all ATMs were programmed to dispense cash of Rs 100, Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations. But now, they will have to reconfigure the machines to make them dispense Rs 50, Rs 100 and Rs 2,000 notes. Configuring Rs 50 into the machine will be faster than configuring Rs 2,000 notes, as the configuration for Rs 50 already exists with most ATM deploying companies.
While people are making a beeline for public sector banks such as SBI, Corporation Bank and Syndicate Bank, some private banks are reportedly turning away anybody but their own customers.