ROURKELA: After the demonitisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, Rourkela city and areas in its neighbourhood on Thursday saw around Rs 120 crore idle money being deposited in different banks and about Rs 20 crore getting exchanged.
With banking operations entering second day on Friday after the ‘surgical strike’ on black money, the staff of SBI branches were burdened with four-fold work after other banks refused to exchange high denomination banned currency. The non-functioning of majority of ATMs also aggravated the situation.
Rourkela region of the SBI, comprising Panposh and Bonai sub-divisions in Sundargarh district, through 46 SBI branches on Thursday recorded deposits of around Rs 50 crore and cash to the tune of nearly Rs 11.09 crore was exchanged. Deposits of all bank branches on Thursday were about Rs 120 crore and exchange of paper currency recorded to the tune of about Rs 20 crore. These figures do not reflect the scenario of Sundargarh sub-division which has 25 SBI branches and with nearly 60 branches of other banks.
With a majority of ATMs in Panposh and Bonai sub-divisions failing to operate on Friday, the public were in for an added trouble as SBI as well as other banks found diverting those seeking exchange of currency notes.
It is learnt that the SBI alone has about 100 ATMS in Rourkela region, including 64 in the city. Only 20 started operations from late afternoon. The ATMs of others like Bank of Maharashtra, IDBI, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank and others did not function on the day. Yet, limited ATM service was of little help. Each ATM loaded with about Rs 10 lakh in Rs 100 denomination would go dry in no time, said customers.
Rourkela-based Regional Manager of SBI, BB Das said the bank’s branches on Friday faced four-fold rush and without discrimination they tried their best to serve both SBI customers and general public. “We are committed to the National cause but the fact that other banks were diverting customers who were seeking exchange of notes has added to the rush,” Das added.
Chief Manager of SBI’s Uditnagar branch SR Sahu said, there was unprecedented rush of people at the branch and they are working for extended hours.