For the second day, people in large numbers continued to throng banks to exchange banned high denomination currency notes while most ATMs ran out of cash within hours of opening today across Tamil Nadu.
Though the government had announced that the ATMs would dispense cash for the customers with maximum limit of Rs 2,000 per person from today, most the ATMs of both public and private sector banks ran out of cash and were inactive.
Several ATMs in remote areas did not function.
Private sector ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank have announced extended working hours up to 8 pm to dispense cash for the customers.
"I was told there was enough cash in ATMs and there will not be any problem in dispensing the cash. But, when I came here, we were asked to leave as ATMs ran out of cash", Kumar, a customer of State Bank of India, said.
With ATMs remaining non-functional, serpentine queues could be seen before the banks for exchanging the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.
(REOPENS MES4)
A Puducherry report said people requiring cash were unable to withdraw money from ATM centres in most of the areas as they remained closed for several hours.
Although a few of the banks started operating ATMs around noon under police security, long queueswere seen in front of them.
Tourists bore the brunt of the cap on withdrawal. One of the tourists from France said that the ceiling on Rs 4000 for exchange of banned currencies was not adequate to meet his expenses.
Business centres wore a near deserted look with absence of customers.
Bank sources said replenishment of cash in the ATM centres would be completed once necessary technical features such as configuration were completed.
