RBI has messed up with improper planning: AIBEA

The RBI has messed up the lives of crores of Indians by not planning properly the logistics for the demonetisation move, a leader of the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) said on Friday.

"There are around 46,000 rural and small town bank branches and around 36,000 ATMs in those areas. They are in dire need of small denomination notes. The people living in those areas need cash for their livelihood," C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary of AIBEA, told IANS.

He said the central bank should have gradually pumped in smaller denomination notes in large quantities so that common people had them than having 500 or 1,000 rupee notes.

"The RBI has messed up its planning in supply of small denomination notes. Further, the ATMs are to be reconfigured and its software rewritten to vend new notes," Venkatachalam added.

He said there was no mechanism to fix responsibility for fake notes spewed out by ATMs till date.

"For those in the cities the currency crisis may not be acute but it is not so in the case of rural areas. The RBI should attend to that fast," he added.

Queried about the Reserve Bank of India's statement that there was sufficient cash in the system, Venkatachalam wondered why were people then queuing up before bank branches and ATMs.

He asked what can people do with Rs 2,000 note if there is no small denomination notes in the system.

Venkatachalam said the bankers were a harried lot as they have to bear the wrath of common man for no fault of theirs.

--IANS

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