Short queues outside ATMs, but many machines still dry

New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The rush for cash in the capital has eased with shorter queues outside ATMs after over two months of the November 8 demonetisation move, although most of the money vending machines still remain dry.

An IANS correspondent on Tuesday found that though, most of the machines were either unfunctional or dry but the ones working had very few people queued up.

In Noida, ATMs of Punjab National Bank, HDFC, ICICI were out of money with only a State Bank of India (SBI) machine dispensing cash.

The few ATMs in South Delhi that were in service either had short or no queues at all.

By and large the situation was same in other parts of the city as well.

“There is no cash in a number of ATMs but the situation is better as we hardly see any queues now and can comfortably withdraw money,” said a resident of New Ashok Nagar.

After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) hiked the daily ATM withdrawal limit from Rs 4,500 to Rs 10,000 on Monday, the public breathed a sigh of relief.

“It is such a relief to not find big queues anymore also now that the upper limit has been raised to Rs 10,000, there won’t be any problem at all,” said 34-year-old Sushma Agarwal, a resident of New Gupta Colony.

“We expect that we will soon be able to withdraw Rs, 10,000 in one go, once the settings are changed,” she said.