A steady stream of people waited in queues to exchange the few ₹2,000 notes they had, even as banks accepted a maximum of 10 notes to be exchanged at a time.
Exiting a public sector bank’s office located on Kurnool Road, a customer said, “I have saved a couple of ₹2,000 notes with me even though the notes, by and large, went out of circulation. With the Reserve Bank of India giving time till September-end, I decided to exchange those notes.”
On average, about 100 customers have been visiting the branch office to exchange the ₹2,000 notes every day, said the Assistant General Manager at the branch. An equal number of people deposited the notes in their savings bank accounts. However, the bank had yet not received any large volume of cash in ₹2,000 denomination to be deposited into saving bank accounts, the AGM added.
“We ensure that the amount in Jan Dhan Yojana bank account does not cross ₹1 lakh at any given time,” another bank official said. There is no restriction on accepting big amounts into the savings bank account of those who furnish PAN cards or submit Form 60 as per Income Tax rules meant for farmers and others who do not possess PAN cards, he added.
Even as the RBI made it clear that the ₹2,000 notes would not cease to be legal tender yet, people found it difficult to make transactions in shops and petrol bunks as the notes were not accepeted.
‘‘Earlier, we used to accept at least twenty ₹2000 notes a day. But now, we ask the people to go to banks to exchange,” said K. Venkatachalam, petrol bunk manager on the Trunk Road.
Meanwhile, a section of businessmen, including realtors with unaccounted wealth, are clueless about exchanging ₹2,000 notes, sources said.
Middlemen charged a 10% commission for exchanging notes worth ₹ 1 crore, taking advantage of the maximum 20 note ceiling set by banks, said the sources.
Meanwhile, bullion traders saw a brisk business as those with a large number of ₹2,000 notes preferred to turn their ‘‘pink notes into yellow metal’‘. ‘‘We are getting a good number of inquiries about the purchase of gold biscuits,” said a bullion trader K. Prasad.
