It has been three months since demonetization of old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government. But one out of every four ATM’s in India still faces a cash crunch. This makes it one fourth of the ATM’s across the country do not have cash to dispense. The bank officials to this, responded that this shortage was because of the bulk withdrawal for cash salary payments at the start of the month. The RBI also assured that this would change after February 10.
Though the RBI is optimistic about the situation, the chief economic adviser of SBI, Soumya Kanti believes the situation would come back to normal only by the end of February. This cash shortage has been a result of RBI’s decision to withdraw limit on cash withdrawals from ATM’s from February 1st. The decision led to a large number of salary and cash withdrawals across the country in the first week.
Speaking about the cash shortage situation, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told parliament, on Tuesday that after demonetization there was not a single day when there was no cash in the ATM’s. He claimed that, “At no point in time, not for a single day, was the currency inadequate,” he added that “As far as the banks are concerned, the RBI was releasing a certain amount of currency through currency chests every day from the 10th of November, when the re-monetisation process had started.”
While the Country faces a cash crunch such statements by the Finance Minister caused an outrage among most of the citizens.
