Singareni staff rue currency ban

Kothagudem: People continue to face hardships even after a month since the high-value currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banned by the Centre as part of demonetisation drive. Both employees and traders are still facing problems in making withdrawals from ATMs, as they have to wait for over six hours.

Employees of the Singareni Collieries and the State government here are unable to draw their salaries, which have been credited four days back, to meet their essential needs. The employees told The Hans India that they have never faced such difficult times in the past several years.

Although the government said its employees would be given cash payment of Rs 10,000 each from their bank accounts, as the banks have no cash stocks, they have not been able to receive the promised amount. Consequently, they are having a tough time in purchasing essential commodities, vegetables, besides meeting expenses of paying the monthly rent, old bills.

The government staff are unable to decide how to spend the amount of Rs 2,000 withdrawn from banks after waiting for hours, with the vegetable vendors and petrol bunk staff maintaining that they don’t have change for the big note.

The vegetable vendors are an unhappy lot as they have to suffer damage with no sales taking place after their customers offering Rs 2,000 notes upon purchasing items worth Rs 50, Rs 100 and Rs 200. As they are unable to hand over change, customers are going back without making purchases.

These vendors grumble thay they are unable to conduct sales of even Rs 500, in contrast to Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 a day prior to the scrapping of the big currency notes, thus having a serious impact on their business activities. They wonder how to settle their own household bills, including power supply, rents of shops etc.