With the lapse of 14 months of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move, residents of Guwahati are yet unable to avail lower denomination currency notes from automated teller machines (ATMs) regularly. Lower denomination notes prove crucial for daily and petty transactions.
A resident of Panjabari, Biplob Bhuyan said, “At the end of every month I keep searching for ATMs which would dispense 100/200 rupee notes, but such ATMs are difficult to come by,” adding that he sometimes gets 100 rupee notes in some ATMs but till date he has never come across an ATM that dispenses 200 rupee notes.
While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched the 200 rupee note in August 2017 (according to media reports), it might have taken three months for ATMs in Guwahati to start dispensing the new denomination currency as it involves a huge exercise of recalibration of ATMs. But even after six months, citizens are not getting the 200 rupee notes from the ATMs.
There are 300 ATMs of the State Bank of India (SBI) in Guwahati and all other banks included, there are around 1000 ATMs across the city.
It’s not that 200 rupee notes are not available in any of the ATMs across the city. As a resident of Lal Ganesh said, “I got 200 rupee notes from the ATM of one of the private banks but that was the only instance."
RBI not issuing 100/200 rupee notes: Banks
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is allegedly not issuing lower denomination notes regularly to the banks in Guwahati.
A senior official in State Bank of India (SBI), Guwahati head office said, “Almost all our automated teller machines (ATMs) have been recalibrated for 200 rupee notes but it can only be put in the ATM compartments if the supply from the RBI is adequate.”
The RBI, according to the SBI official, is distributing 500 and 2000 rupee notes mostly.
There are four compartments in the ATMs; one compartment is for 2000 rupee notes, another is for 500 rupee notes, the third is for 200 rupee notes and finally the fourth compartment is for 100 rupee notes. In each compartment there can be maximum 20 packets of currency notes that can be kept.
Currency notes of further lower denomination are not kept in the ATMs for the obvious reasons of there being no demand.
Like the SBI sources, other banks also claim that recalibration of their respective ATMs has been done but the RBI is not issuing 100/200 rupee notes regularly and adequately.
Senior RBI officials in Guwahati did not want to comment on the issue saying, “Only the central office located in Mumbai can comment on the matter.”
SBI has only 3,418 PoS machines in Guwahati
It was expected that digital transactions would increase after demonetisation, but till 31st January 2018, only 3,418 point of sale (PoS) machines have been installed in the city’s business establishments.
Out of the 3,418 installed PoS machines only 70% are functional, State Bank of India (SBI) sources said.
A senior SBI official said, “People are not applying for the PoS machines.”
All other banks included, there are around 8,000 PoS machines installed in the city, whereas according to Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) sources there are 60,000 business establishments in Guwahati.
A city-based businessman, Kedar Nath, who recently visited New Delhi, said, “Even all the paan shops in Delhi have card swiping machines and digital transaction is so easy,” adding that in Guwahati he has not seen a single paan shop accepting a payment through a card.
A customer recently visited PC Jewellers located at Lachit Nagar. After purchasing jewellery worth Rs 65,000 he was asked to make cash payments as all the PoS machines in the shop were apparently not functional.