Most ATMs run dry in Madhubani district

MADHUBANI: Residents of Madhubani are facing acute shortage of cash in ATM machines for the past few weeks. Altogether, there are 40 ATMs in the district.
After demonetisation, it has become a regular feature. Majority of the ATMs, including that of private banks in the town, are running dry, resulting in lot of harassment to consumers for even small amounts of cash at any given hour.One Anilnath Jha of ward No 17 of Madhubani town said, “ATMs have become mere show pieces here as either they are out of order or there is no cash. After visiting 10-15 ATMs if you get one filled with cash, you are scared of the long queue before it.”
Another harassed customer, Kumarji Jha of nearby Pilakhwar village said, “It’s a piquant situation. Despite money in the account, people are facing cash crunch.”
SBI regional manager Ajit Poddar said, “We are not getting cash from RBI as per our requirement. Most of the ATMs are being fed with denomination of Rs 100 and the cash tray gets empty very soon. The machines have not been calibrated to hold new notes smaller denominations, whereas notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 are in short supply.”
Another banker, on the condition of anonymity said that apart from short supply of cash by RBI, frequent changes in the private agencies which replenish the ATMs with cash also causes problems.