Three days on, long queues continue for small denomination notes in Gujarat

People clashed with bank officials at several places, leading to police action including lathi-charge and detention in Gujarat where long queues continued outside bank branches across the state on Saturday.

People complained of difficulties with several ATMs remaining closed, and banks exchanging the scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with coins and small denomination currency.

"Nobody is accepting old currency notes, even hospitals are now refusing to do so because of which we are facing difficulty. Several ATMs still remain closed," said Ramesh Agarwal, who came to exchange his old notes at a bank.

People also complained that they were given coins in exchange for old notes.

"Officials said they have run out of new Rs 2000 notes and they only have coins for exchange," said Bipin Patel, who came to exchange his notes at one bank branch. "They have given me coins of Rs 4,000 which is very difficult to carry," he said.

Rajesh Shah, a senior citizen, said lack of money has caused hardship in purchasing essential items such as milk, bread and vegetable.

"We stood in queues for two days to get our old currency exchanged. We have Rs 3 lakh in bank account, but we are unable to purchase essential items. Modi should first have made proper arrangement for cash before declaring this," said Shah.

At several places people clashed with bank officials leading to police action including lathi-charge and detention. At a bank branch at Shihori in Banaskantha district, police resorted to lathi-charge after people clashed with bank officials when they refused to dispense money. Similar incident was reported at a bank branch in Abdasa in Kutch when people clashed with bank officials.