Gudur toll plaza surprises commuters with coin bags

​Warangal: Before the Highways Ministry suspended the toll collection on Wednesday evening, the Toll Plazas across the State witnessed all kinds of chaos with the commuters tendering the scrapped notes - Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 - and the toll staff refusing to accept them.

However, the situation at the Toll Plaza near Guduru on the National Highway 163 was different altogether. Moreover, it reminded the old folkloric movies in which bags of coins used as monetary exchange.

The plaza runners appeared well prepared as they returned coins packed in a polythene sachet to those commuters, who tendered Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 for toll fee.

Elsewhere in Nalgonda and Suryapet districts, vehicles queued up at the toll plazas with almost all the commuters offering the demonetized currency notes.

Initially, the some toll plazas refused to accept both the denominations, but when they started to take them, they quickly ran out of paper money, especially of Rs 100 denomination. This led to inevitable argument between the commuters and toll staff.

The toll staff at Korlapahad under Kethepally mandal in Nalgonda district said that the commuters who demanded them to accept the scrapped notes are not ready to accept Rs 500 notes.

Every where the phenomena was same as the people tending to tender Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to get them changed into Rs 100 and Rs 50 as the ATM and banking transactions came to a grinding halt.

On the other hand, although the petrol bunks readily accepted Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 notes, the bunks too came under intense pressure with every one offering the high denomination notes just to get one or two litres of petrol or diesel.

As a result, the bunk staff asked the customers to get their vehicles filled with fuel to the tune of Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 as they don’t have change to return.

The demonetization effect landed the petty and medium level businesses in a no man’s land. They were neither in a position to accept the scrapped notes nor have required paper money to go ahead with business. Some hospitals, medical shops and provisional stores refused to accept the notes.

Srinivas S, a provisional store owner in Hanamkonda said: “I have no fear to accept the notes but certainly it could be a herculean task to stand in queue to deposit them when the banks start to accept them. As it would take a few days, it’s difficult for me to run my shop without finances.”