Three months after the Indian government demonetised old ₹500 and ₹1,000 rupee notes, one-fourth of the ATMs in India are still out of cash, reported Hindustan Times. Bank officials told HT that the shortage was because of bulk withdrawals for cash salary payments at the start of the month, and that the situation would improve after 10 February.
However, Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic adviser of the SBI Group, told the newspaper that the situation would become normal only at the end of the month.
The Reserve Bank of India had removed earlier withdrawal limits on ATMs starting 1 February. This led to a large number of cash withdrawals across the country this month.
Surprisingly, finance minister Arun Jaitley told Parliament on Tuesday that there wasn't a single day where cash had been inadequate since the demonetisation announcement in November.
"At no point of time, not for a single day, was the currency inadequate," he claimed. "As far as the banks are concerned, the RBI was releasing a certain amount of currency through currency chests every day from the 10th of November, when the re-monetisation process had started."
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