ATMs dry as cash crunch hits banks in Nagaland

Morung Express News
Dimapur | April 8  

With ATMS running dry for the last few days, cash crunch is bothering Nagaland again with public facing a lot of inconveniences.  

The automatic teller machines (ATMs) in most of the districts in the state have been empty over the past few days owing to lack of cash in the banks. In Dimapur, people were seen unsuccessfully scampering from one State Bank of India (SBI) ATM to another, and even visiting those belonging to private banks to cash.  

By Saturday, most of the ATMs had downed its shutter while indicating no cash at hand. A bank official said there is no cash in the SBI main branch which acts as the depot for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with no money supply coming from the RBI branch, Guwahati.  

AGM SBI Dimapur Main Branch, Debjyoti Dutta when contacted told The Morung Express that the short supply of notes from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Dutta however informed that RBI would be disbursing the cash for Nagaland on Monday, and ATMs would likely be refilled by Tuesday onwards.  

Not only in Nagaland, there have been report of short supply of cash in the banks in many parts of the country with the nearest state being Manipur which also facing cash crisis at moment. Dutta also maintained that the shortage of cash is confined only in the ATMs. At the SBI branches, there was still cash –at-hand to manage everyday transactions.  

While there may be multiple factors leading to the cash shortage, bank officials also blame the present predicament to the hoarding of the new 500 and 2000 denominations.  

According to Dutta, since November 2016, the RBI had supplied around 2000 crore to Nagaland state alone. “It seems hoarding of currency is still going on. Most of the cash released is not coming back to the bank,” he stated.  

Thangboi Lunkim, Assistant General Manager of SBI Regional Office while pointing out that shortage of currency notes was not confined only in Nagaland but in many part of the country also did not rule out that hoarding of the new currency notes may be one factor for the liquidity crunch.  

“The shortage of the new 500 and 2000 notes indicate that hoarding is still going on,” Lunkim said. He also advocated that people need to start using digital system of banking instead.  

Another factor for shortage of currency is that the RBI is not supplying enough cash to the banks. A top RBI official had recently blamed the shortage due to ‘overdrawal’ of cash out of ATMs which means people are withdrawing more money than they ought to.