Archives for 2016

New Delhi: Queues outside banks grew longer as did confusion and chaos, with all cash vending machines still not functioning despite a two-day break for stocking up new currency notes.

People waited for hours to get the cash needed to meet their daily expenses as most prevalent higher denomination currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 were declared invalid.

ATMs, which reopened two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of two biggest currency notes, had people queued up since early morning.

But not all of them were operating and the crowds at many of the machines grew increasingly agitated on learning that they were still inactive. Bank officials said all ATMs should start functioning by tomorrow after old notes are removed and new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 ones stocked in them.

However, withdrawal from ATMs is limited to a maximum of Rs 2,000 per card in a day up to November 18, 2016. The limit will be raised to Rs 4,000 per day per card from November 19, 2016 onwards, bankers said.

State Bank of India, the nation’s largest lender, said it could take 10 days for ATM services to settle down to normal.

There are nearly 2 lakh ATMs in the country. Many of them are configured to dispense only Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 notes and cannot dispense Rs 100 or Rs 2000 notes, so they have to be reconfigured too.

Yesterday, when banks opened after a day’s break, millions rushed to deposit and swap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Only a maximum of Rs 4,000 per person was being exchanged at banks and select post offices.

Banks opened additional counters to exchange notes as also allow withdrawal from bank accounts through cheque or withdrawal slips with a ceiling of Rs 10,000 in a day within an overall limit of Rs 20,000 in a week (including withdrawals from ATMs) for the first fortnight i.e. up to November 24.

Interestingly, today is the last date for old notes to be accepted as payment for water and electricity bills, government penalties, and at state-run petrol pumps, government hospitals, metros and railway tickets.

After midnight tonight, even these utility payments would have to be done in either lower denomination currency or in new currency notes, which will add to the pressure on banks and ATMs.

Banks will work on weekend and till at least 7 pm on these days to cater to the rush.

(Agencies)

Mumbai: Amid the woes of customers hit by cash crunch, a 73-year-old man, who was standing in a queue to exchange his old currency notes here, collapsed and died in suburban Mulund this afternoon, police said.

Vishwanath Vartak, a senior citizen, was standing in a queue outside a branch of the State Bank of India in Navghar area of Mulund (East) to exchange his notes when he suddenly fell down at around 1.30 PM, they said.

As he fell, some people, who were also in the queue, rushed him to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead before admission, police said adding that the body has been sent for postmortem.

Police also visited the spot where the elderly man collapsed.According to initial reports, Vartak died of a heart attack, police said.

Following the government’s decision to scrap the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, there has been a huge rush outside the banks since yesterday and also at the ATMs today residents anxious to withdraw some money to meet their daily expenses were seen standing in serpentine queues.

Police patrolling is being done and beat marshals are deployed outside the banks and the ATM centres to avoid any untoward incident and control the crowd wherever necessary.

(Agencies)

Chandigarh: All Opposition Congress MLAs today submitted their resignation to the Punjab Assembly Secretary here today to protest the Supreme Court’s ruling favouring Haryana on the SYL issue.

State Congress chief Amarinder Singh, meanwhile, launched a fresh attack on Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, alleging Badal has “failed to protect the interest” of the people and announced that his party will take out a rally on the issue on Sunday.

The 42 MLAs, including leader of Opposition Charanjit Singh Channi, Sunil Jakhar, Sukhjinder Randhawa and Balbir Singh Sidhu, went to the Assembly here and submitted their resignations to Assembly Secretary Shashi Lakhanpal Mishra as Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal was not present.

Senior Congress leaders, including Amarinder Singh, Partap Singh Bajwa and Ambika Soni accompanied the MLAs. “I will submit the resignations to the Speaker. He will see whether to accept them or not,” Mishra said.

A Congress spokesperson denied reports in a section of the media that they have submitted the resignations to the Governor.

Speaking to mediapersons, Amarinder said, “I am not in Parliament and our MLAs are not in Vidhan Sabha. We will go to the people. We are going to burn the effigies of the government for not protecting Punjab’s rights.”

“We will hold a rally at the tail-end of the canal system in southernmost part of Punjab on Sunday, which will be affected (by the verdict),” he said.

Hitting out at Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, the state Congress chief asked, “Why is Badal not protecting Punjab’s interests? Is it because he has made a lot of money and doesn’t care what happens in his area?”

The water dispute assumed a new dimension with the Supreme Court yesterday holding as unconstitutional the 2004 law passed by Punjab to terminate the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal water sharing agreement with neighboring states.

“All the questions have been answered in the negative,” a five-judge bench headed by Justice A R Dave said, while pronouncing its decision on the Presidential reference.

The judgement makes it clear that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 is “unconstitutional” and Punjab could not have taken a “unilateral” decision to terminate the water sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.

The bench, which also included Justices P C Ghose, Shiva Kirti Singh, A K Goel and Amitava Roy, was unanimous in holding that all the five questions of Presidential reference have to be answered in the negative.

The judgement implies that the 2004 Act was not in consonance with the apex court judgement of 2003 which had mandated the construction of the SYL canal that was stalled.

(Agencies)

Madikeri: Scores of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members, including its state president B.S Yeddyurappa, were arrested on Thursday who were protesting against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for celebrating the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan and also for the killings of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and party activists in the state.

Places like Gulbarga and Madikeri saw heavy deployments of state reserve police force to quell violent protests.

“Arrested while protesting against the Cong government for celebrating Tippu Jayanti. Will scrap this Jayanti within 24hrs of forming BJP govt in 2018,” Yeddyurappa Tweeted.

Talking to media, former chief minister Yeddyurappa said that he met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to refer the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to probe the killings of the BJP and RSS workers

“We met Rajnath Singh and requested him to constitute a proper inquiry and refer it to the NIA for which he has agreed. We know very well that more than 18 deaths took place recently, so I don’t know why Siddaramaiah is bent upon celebrating Tipu sultan programme. We are holding state-wide protests against the government,” Yeddyurappa said.

The Congress government views Tipu Sultan as a patriot who fought against the British.

However, the BJP and the RSS views are completely different from those of the state government, who regard Tipu Sultan as a tyrant monarch and for his biasness against Hindus.

(ANI)

New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that people can withdraw the new series of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes from the ATMs from Thursday midnight.

“ATMs will start functioning from today (Thursday) midnight. People can withdraw the new currency notes,” Jaitley told TV channel CNN-News 18 in an interview.

The government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from November 8 midnight. New notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denomination are being issued starting Thursday in banks and post offices.

Lakhs of anxious people made a beeline to banks and post offices on Thursday to exchange their old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Most private and public sector bank branches were seen jampacked with customers.

With the ATMs giving out new currency from midnight, it is expected to ease the queues before the banks and post offices that were witnessed entire day on Thursday.

All banks have been directed to work for 12 hours on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to clear the rush of desperate customers for exchange transactions and, if required, remain open even next Sunday (November 20).

Jaitley said that a total amount of Rs 14 lakh crore is in circulation in the economy in high denomination notes. “But how much will be replaced by people, I cannot predict,” he said.

(IANS)