Banks re-open after Rs 500/Rs 1,000 notes demonitised

As the banks reopened for the first time on Thursday since the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes on Tuesday night, many rushed to exchange old notes with loose change and to deposit the rest.

"The rush was already there when I reached office. Now we are running at full capacity, and there must be 80 odd people inside the bank now," Mukul, a sales executive at Axis bank in Noida told IANS when it opened at 8 a.m. He was standing outside to distribute the withdrawal forms to the customers.

"We were told to come early and our shift has also been extended by two hours. We were anticipating such a crowd," he added.

A Kotak Bank nearby also witnessed a long queue outside, as the customers inside were being attended to.

An overnight guard outside the nearby Kotak bank said that the people had started gathering in the morning even before the bank opened and that people had been standing there for a long time.

"I'm standing in the queue for the last one hour. I had come around 9, I think should've come early," a customer standing in queue, who had come for exchange and deposit both, told IANS.

Most banks deployed at least two of their employees outside the gate to guide the people with forms and other instructions. However, details of the form aside, almost every customer seemed to know the limited amount for exchange, deposit, and everything else concerning the post-ban procedures.

"You can exchange notes worth Rs 4000, while there's no upper cap to the amount you can deposit," a seemingly well informed customer told IANS.

But the rush was not completely without its share of chaos which usually attends such situations, as there were instances of people cutting in lines and others admonishing them for doing so.

"I am not cutting line, my friend is already inside I just need to give him the photostat of his identity card," a man was heard pleading to the guard and people standing in queue.

--IANS

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