Cash crunch will be resolved by tomorrow: SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar

NEW DELHI: Amid shortage of currency notes in various cities of the country, SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar on Thursday said that problem of

cash crunch

will be resolved by tomorrow, news agency PTI reported. Kumar said that currency is being sent to states facing shortage of notes.


Earlier, SBI had pegged the cash shortfall in the system at a whopping Rs 70,000 crore , which is a third of the monthly withdrawals at ATMs. The research note estimated that Rs 15,291 billion were withdrawn from ATMs through debit cards in the second half of FY18, which is a good 12.2 per cent growth over the previous six months. Reacting to reports of the currency shortage, it said the currency in circulation has breached the pre-note ban levels of Rs 17.84 trillion and added that such reports are "intriguing and defy logic".

On Wednesday TOI reported that tax authorities conducted 30-35 raids in Karnataka and parts of Andhra Pradesh as part of a drive to smoke out cash hoarders, even as the government and RBI were pumping in funds. In Bihar, for instance, Rs 800-900 crore has been pumped in through the ATM network with initial assessments suggesting that the shortage may be tackled soon. But the problem is seen to be more deep-rooted in Andhra and Telangana, where the role of large contractors is under the I-T department’s lens.

On Tuesday, S C Garg, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs had said that government has taken steps to ramp up the minting of Rs 500 currency notes by five times.

Read this story in Bengali