Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi was on Friday seen standing in queue with public at SBI ATM in Parliament street, Delhi. “The common man is suffering, that is why I am standing with my people. I am here to exchange 4000 rupees,†he said.
People present at the ATM surrounded Rahul Gandhi and started taking selfies with him. Earlier on Friday, queues outside banks grew longer as did confusion and chaos, with all cash vending machines still not functioning despite a two-day break for stocking up new currency notes.
People waited for hours to get the cash needed to meet their daily expenses as most prevalent higher denomination currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 were declared invalid.
ATMs, which reopened two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of two biggest currency notes, had people queued up since early morning.
But not all of them were operating and the crowds at many of the machines grew increasingly agitated on learning that they were still inactive.
Bank officials said all ATMs should start functioning by tomorrow after old notes are removed and new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 ones stocked in them.
However, withdrawal from ATMs is limited to a maximum of Rs 2,000 per card in a day up to November 18, 2016. The limit will be raised to Rs 4,000 per day per card from November 19, 2016 onwards, bankers said.
State Bank of India, the nation’s largest lender, said it could take 10 days for ATM services to settle down to normal.
There are nearly 2 lakh ATMs in the country. Many of them are configured to dispense only Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 notes and cannot dispense Rs 100 or Rs 2000 notes, so they have to be reconfigured too.
(With inputs from PTI)
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