Ten days since the official announcement on demonetization from the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, the queues at a majority of the banks have been reportedly getting shorter with governments restrictions on cash exchange. However, the ATMs are visibly crowded as people look frustrated waiting in long queues to draw some cash for themselves.
With the queues getting shorter, all the banks have decided to serve only their respective customers to exchange notes. Which means, no bank will now allow other bank’s customers to exchange their old currency. However, a relaxation has been given to senior citizens in this regard. They can visit any of the nearest banks to deposit their old currency notes.
The shorter queues at the banks are due to the government’s restriction on cash withdrawals from Rs 4,500 to Rs 2000. In addition, several banks have been using the indelible ink mark on fingers of the depositors to identify repeated transactors.
The same has been confirmed by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday. “We have been monitoring the situation from time to time. The situation has become normal, all over the country. The queues have reduced significantly. There is absolutely no need to panic”, he said.
On the other side, with the Union government and the Reserve Bank of India struggling to manage cash deficit across the country, farmers and small-scale companies along with daily-wage workers have been the most hit. It has been reported that the daily-wage workers were forced to sit idle due to the demonetization effect. A majority of the construction works were halted in major metropolitan cities, leading to severe unemployment to poor people.
Though the government allowed farmers to transact for Rs 50,000 at a time, the limitations will not cater to the overall needs of the farmers. Also, farmers are not the only one who needs a higher amount of exchange facility. Small-scale companies too require unrestricted transactions in order to pay salaries to its employees and purchase goods.
People have been facing inconvenience in purchasing daily essential goods like Milk, vegetables, and medicines because of the lack of lower denomination notes.