In an attempt to make the country’s two lakh ATMs attuned to deliver new currency notes to the long queues, about 12,500 ATMs are being recalibrated every day to dispatch new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes.
According to a Times of India report, the increased pace of recalibrating the ATMs may pave way for the governments to raise the limits on cash withdrawals in the coming weeks as concerns of banks being flooded with withdrawal recedes.
The government has taken several measures in order to increase the cash supply at ATMs and make sure that the waiting time for customers at bank branches are reduced.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had last week assured people that the government is taking steps to replace Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes as soon as possible and that the situation will be normalised in two to three weeks.
“It will take two-three weeks to recalibrate the ATMs across the country for the new Rs 500/2,000 notes. It will be a slow process," the Finance minister had said.
The opposition parties have hit out the Centre for suddenly pulling Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes out of circulation. They targeted the government over the confusion and panic at the banks and the ATMs.
To this, Mr Jaitley said that we couldn’t have calibrated ATMs for the new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 notes to maintain secrecy. “Any such move to recalibrate would need thousands of people and the secrecy would be compromised.”
Recalibration of ATMs requires both changes to the hardware and software and technical teams have to visit each and every ATM to undertake the operation that can take 3-4 hours.
