Bank branches are finding it difficult to face the wrath, rage and resentment of the customers due to the inconvenience caused to them on account of the ongoing demonetisation exercise and shortage of bank notes, said a bankers' trade union body.
"Customers are reluctant to accept Rs 2,000 notes and in the absence of supply of Rs 500 notes and coupled with shortage of Rs 100 notes....Not unoften, we get reports of abusive language from the customers on the staff for not being able to give them required cash due to reasons beyond their control," said a joint statement by the All India Bank Employees Association and All India Bank Officers' Association.
There are wide reports that due to shortage of cash, customers are asked to withdraw Rs. 2,000 or Rs. 4000 instead of Rs. 24,000 which they are eligible to, since there is inadequate cash balance in the branches.
CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA, said there is acute shortage of Rs. 100 currency notes and hence even the recalibrated ATMs are not able to dispense cash to the customers.
The Association Secretary observed that even whatever Rs 100 notes are being supplied by RBI are found to be very very soiled ones earlier remitted to RBI as non-issuable. Customers are refusing to accept these dirty and soiled notes and in fact it is found to be health hazard for the cash counter staff who handle these soiled notes.
"We find branches are displaying boards like ‘No Cash', ‘Cash No stock', etc. which seriously erode the reputation of our banks in the eye of the common people.
"We have reports that that irritated customers are creating tension inside branches and sometimes locking the branch premises from outside and staff had to call police to come and break open the lock," said Venkatachalam.
He noted that the next one week to 10 days are going to be much more tense because, huge number of employees, workers and retirees/pensioners would throng the bank branches to draw from their salary credit and non-availability of enough cash may lead to serious issues of law and order also.
Adding to the problems, still majority of the ATMs are non-functional and this would add to the crowd and congestion inside the branch premises.
Further, according to Venkatachalam, the RBI is issuing umpteen number of instructions every day and branch staff are unable to cope up with these instructions instantly until they are duly intimated about it from their respective Head Offices. Sometimes these instructions of RBI create more problems than solutions, he added.
In a letter to Indian Banks' Association, Venkatachalam said "We are afraid, there would be lot of undue pressures, tensions, conflicts and clashes in the Branches and Branch managers, officers and other staff would face a big ordeal.
"We seek the intervention of IBA to advice the Banks to ask for proper police protection in branches to provide proper security to the staff."
Further, IBA has been requested to take up with RBI to ensure adequate supply of currency notes to all Banks without any discrimination, which allegation is also doing a lot of rounds that some few private Banks get more supply of notes from RBI at the cost of public sector Banks.