“There’s Chaos Everywhere” – Indians Angry As ATMs Run Dry After Cash Ban
India’s banks have been caught out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unexpected and widely-praised announcement late on Tuesday of the withdrawal of 500-rupee and 1,000-rupee notes,part of a crackdown on tax evasion and the underground economy. Jaitley urged people not to rush to banks immediately and wait for a few days and to conduct financial transactions using electronic transfers, cheques and credit and debit cards.“A big regret is that people are getting inconvenienced, but currency replacement of this magnitude will cause some problems,” said Jaitley. “There are long, but orderly queues. Such a big currency replacement can’t be done overnight.”
Indians rushed to deposit 478.68 billion rupees ($7.1 billion) of cash at State Bank of India after the government’s surprise move to abolish high-denomination banknotes, as customers queued for hours to deposit or exchange the old bills and ATMs ran dry.
Are very different from the more frantic scenes described on social media and reported on by Reuters…
Anger intensified in India on Saturday as banks struggled to dispense cash following the government’s decision to withdraw large denomination notes in an attempt to uncover billions of dollars in undeclared wealth.
Tempers frayed as hundreds of thousands of people queued for hours outside banks for a third day to swap 500 and 1,000 rupee bank notes after the notes were abolished earlier in the week.
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