Pension day: Patience wears thin at post offices

HYDERABAD: Fed up with `no cash' boards displayed by banks and ATMs, customers thronged nearby post offices on Wednesday to draw their pensions.
Long queues were witnessed almost in all head post offices in the city till noon with people queueing up since morning.
Till November 24, the post offices were packed with people exchanging demonetised notes.After the Centre banned exchanging of notes, customers are now heading to post offices to make deposits in old `500 and `1,000 currency, the last date for which is December 30.
In Abids GPO, customers stood in serpentine queues from 8 am onwards to deposit banned notes in their saving accounts. “Though central government gave us time to deposit old notes in saving accounts, we are worried about new decisions taken by the RBI. So, I came to deposit early,“ said S Achyutha Reddy, who has a savings account in the post office.
Another person who came to draw his pension amount stood in a queue for nearly an hour. “I was in the USA when the government announced the demonetisation of notes and I returned to the city late last week. In fact, restriction on drawing amount has hurt me badly,“ said N Kanaka Raju, resident of Trimulgherry, a customer of Secunderabad post office.
“I had deposited the banned currency in my savings account as I planned to go on a North India tour along with my family. The postal department has to open additional counters to save time, instead of making us stand in long queues for hours together,“ said 65-year-old Savithri.
The postal department on Tuesday issued `2,000 notes in pension, instead of giving `100 notes. “It is very difficult to get change for `2,000 notes.I stood in the queue for nearly an hour,“ a resident of Secunderabad, P Veera Reddy said.
When TOI contacted Janardhan Reddy, postmaster of Hyderabad GPO, he said unless customers stop depositing demonetised cash in savings accounts, the queues would always be long. He said the postal department has opened additional counters to avoid inconvenience.