The scene outside every bank across the country was the same on Saturday. It was the equivalent of what you read in text books as a 'run '. Huge crowds waited to exchange invalid notes for new and smaller denomination currency. Saturday was no better than the last two days of crisis operations in terms of relief for customers.

Banks have started to feel the pressure, as their supplies seems to be going dry. Currency chests are running short of lower denomination currency." Coimbatore is an industrial hub and there has always been a demand for the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination notes. Now that these have been pulled out of the system, people are rushing to exchange such notes. There is huge demand for Rs 50, Rs 100 and the newly introduced Rs 2000 currency. While we do have some bundles of lower denomination currency, the supply of new notes is inadequate to meet the demand," said a bank official.

Industry insiders further revealed that the banking regulator is even contemplating pumping soiled notes, that were originally surrendered to the RBI, to ensure adequate supply for the present. "It could be just a short term measure, as back end support."

Meanwhile bankers were anxious about how they would be able to tackle the exchange demand on Sunday and next week . Many said that they would be able to manage for a day but not beyond.

For now though, they seem to be playing a balancing act requesting some customers to limit their withdrawals from the ATM to a minimum amount so as to accommodate the others in the queue.

Many ATMs were either shut or not operational as yet. The drama continues...

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