Nightmares of DeMon haunt residents as ATMs go dry

DEHRADUN: Residents continued to face inconvenience after most ATMs across Uttarakhand went cashless for the second consecutive day on Tuesday. The nightmares of queuing up in front of ATMs for paltry sums after demonetization came back to haunt the locals as ATMs in the city too went dry.
Most ATMs around Clock Tower, Rajpur road, Sahastradhara road and colonies around GMS road, Kaulagarh and Doon University were out of cash.
With no cash ATMs beyond Mussoorie diversion, people had to drive down all the way to Jakhan area. “There is no cash in the ATMs after the Mussoorie diversion and everyone is driving far off looking for ATM to withdraw money,” said Anshul Tripathi, a student.
Officials of Oriental Bank, State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank, on condition of anonymity, admitted the shortage of cash in the region but could not pinpoint the exact reason that triggered the situation. In places such as Nainital, Haldwani, Bageshwar, in Kumaon and Haridwar, Pauri, Srinagar in Garhwal, people faced shortage of cash in ATMs on Tuesday.
Some residents even said that they first started witnessing cash crunch last week. The SBI ATM at Convent Road had people queuing up outside it on Saturday and the same ATM was already dry on Tuesday. “The long queue reminded me of the time of the post demonetisation when everyone waited for hours to withdraw money from ATMs,” said Sunil Shah, a shopkeeper.
The situation of ATMs in Secretariat that caters to all state government employees was no different. “The two ATMs in Secretariat had no cash on Tuesday afternoon and everyone faced the problem,” said Madhu Joshi, an employee.
RBI general manager of Uttarakhand, Subrata Das, said, “The remittance of over Rs 400 crore is on its way and will reach Uttarakhand by Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning it will reach the banks. There is no cash crunch in the state.”
He, however, blamed the usually high withdrawal by people for the situation. “The remittance of Rs 400 crore is as per the normal schedule and there would be intermittent remittances in next two months,” Das added.