Banks and ATMs across Tamil Nadu continued to witness long queues of people waiting to exchange defunct Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and withdraw cash today even as government toiled hard to meet the situation by dispensing currency through banks and post offices.
Bank officials were working continuously since last week in order to ensure smooth exchange of currency notes, but majority of ATMs of private and public sector banks remained shut due to lack of cash at several places.
Short supply of Rs 100 notes also continued to pose problem.
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"Most of the people prefer to take up cash by standing in long queues by exchanging the old currency notes. Though we have clearly mentioned we can disburse a maximum of Rs 4,000 per individual per day using new Rs 2,000 notes, several insist on Rs 100 notes," a bank official said.
"Since we ourself do not have in Rs 100 denomination we can give them only new Rs 2,000 note. How is it possible to disburse Rs 100 notes for everyone waiting in a queue?" an official of a public sector bank said.
Another bank official said a notice has been put up in front of the bank branch stating that only Rs 2,000 notes were available.
Post offices also continued to witness rush for exchanging the notes but were able to dispense Rs 100 notes at several places.
"Though they (officials) take long time to do formalities compared to bank officials, we get the change so that we can manage the weekly expenses," a customer who was waiting to exchange currencies at the Anna Salai Head Post Office, said.
The state government also encouraged people to pay the property tax and electricity bills using old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
Special campaign through auto-rickshaws was conducted in various residential areas requesting people to make use of the opportunity.
Meanwhile, angry customers who were waiting for long hours to withdraw cash, pelted stones at an ATM in suburban Ponneri as it ran out of cash, police said.
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In Madurai, Primary Agricultural Cooperative Banks (PACB) employees staged a demonstration urging the government to allow them to transact with the demonetised currency notes or issue them new notes so that they could carry on their business as usual.
Employees of the banks, said the functioning PACBs had been crippled due to demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
All PACBs had been instructed to suspend transactions after the demonetisation of the two currency notes. Now the beneficiaries and customers, who were mostly poor farmers, were suffering, said all PACB Employees Association Joint Secretary P Kamaraj Pandian.
"We are not able to carry out any service to beneficiaries of PACBs. We are also unable collect the loan dues from farmers or give money to the farmers from the savings bank account," he said.
He said farmers were unable to buy fertilisers, adding the government could also announce that PACBs would not function till cash was given to them.
