CASHLESS ECONOMY, FINALLY
NPAs AGAIN: THIS TIME, NON-PERFORMING ATMs
A day after Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan flagged the shortage of Rs 2,000 notes in ATMs, reports trickled in about a large number of ATMs of various banks running out of cash in Delhi and in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar.
Among the cities, Delhi, Bhopal, Raipur, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Varanasi and Surat were badly impacted. The worst is Bhopal where people say many ATMs had no cash for the past 15 days.
The crisis has erupted when Prime Minister Modi is on a foreign tour and so is the RBI Governor. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tried to fill in the gap by explaining to BJP leaders and government officials that the shortage was purely temporary and there was no cause for panic. Speculation was rife on the social media that political parties are hoarding high denomination notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 for the upcoming Assembly elections in Karnataka next month; this will be followed by elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan at year-end.
Asked to comment, Congress president Rahul Gandhi put the entire blame on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he had "destroyed the banking system" and the result is on display. "Nirav Modi fled with Rs 30,000 crore and the prime minister did not utter a word. We were forced to stand in queues as he snatched Rs 5001,000 notes from our pockets and put it in Nirav Modi’s pocket," he said.
Even as hashtags 'ATM' and "cash crunch" trended feverishly on Tuesday, Jaitley urged people not to panic as it is a "temporary shortage" that will be tackled quickly.
He assured people in a tweet that there is enough currency in circulation and with the banks, even as the social media compared the situation with the one in 2016 after the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes.
Jaitley’s minister of state SP Shukla promised to solve the problem in three days, claiming the government and the Reserve Bank of India are working to transfer currency that is in surplus in some states to others. He said the problem arose since "some states have less currency and others have more."
Economic Affairs Secretary Subhas Garg said, "We have ramped up printing of Rs 500 notes, will be able to print Rs 2500 crore (in value) of 500 notes every day." Earlier it was Rs 500 crore. Garg said. The Opposition was quick to attack the government, pointing out that the currency shortage in the ATMs was building up since last one week but no remedial measures were put in place.
The Congress was quick in conducting a poll on Twitter, asking whether ATMs running out of cash was "just gross mismanagement by Modi government...or...a deliberate move."
A finance ministry official said the government and the RBI had taken all steps to meet this unusual demand which was draining the ATMs.
CPM leader Sitaram Yechuary tweeted: "ATMs were empty in November 2016. ATMs are empty now. And the only party flush with cash is the BJP: the people suffer."
Bankers suspect that the crisis erupted because people had begun hoarding the high denomination notes of Rs 2,000, forcing others to draw notes of lower denominations, resulting in the ATMs running dry.