Even 53 days later, Punjab villages are cash-starved

The 50-day deadline, set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for normalisation of the cash situation after the November 8 demonetisation announcement, has come and gone, but villages in Punjab still feel the pain of the cash crunch.

In the hinterlands, long-winding queues outside banks are still the norm, but with low cash-flows, banks are unable to service the needs of villagers, many of whom have to travel miles to reach their branches.

“We are trying our best to make sure everyone gets some money,” says the manager of a major public sector bank, requesting anonymity. “I have 25,000 clients in this branch, but I have only ₹10 lakh in my coffers at any given time. How can I give everyone the ₹24,000-a-week promised by the Centre?”

This branch is the main one in the district, and caters to seven other branches, besides one post office.

The manager told BusinessLine that the branch was getting ₹10-25 lakh every 2-3 days, out of which it disburses money to the other smaller branches, some of which get only ₹1-2 lakh a week.

“We try to keep at least ₹10 lakh in this branch and send the rest to smaller branches,” the manager said.

“Before demonetisation, we used to have at least ₹50 crore at any given time, of which ₹47 crore was in ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes,” the manager added.

In fact, on December 30, over 200 people were waiting in queues for ₹2,000, the maximum amount being disbursed per person on that day. Those in line were given tokens for the next date on which they can again withdraw from their accounts: January 9.

“Today, we are giving everyone ₹2,000. I have only ₹10 lakh,” said the manager.

“If I were to give everyone their weekly limit of ₹24,000 (or ₹50,000 in the case of current accounts), how many people will I be able to serve? And we need to keep some cash for the opening next day,” he explained.

A neighbouring private bank, however, appears to have almost no rush.

“We are managing relatively well. In November, there was a lot of crunch, we couldn’t meet people’s needs. But now, the situation has more or less normalised,” said the manager of the private bank.

However, with just 3,000 accounts, this bank’s client base is about an eighth of the public sector bank’s clientele.

“Most people here have accounts in government banks. Their Jan Dhan accounts are in government banks. We get about ₹10 lakh a week. The government bank also gets about the same amount. That is why they are struggling,” the private bank manager said.

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