The pain of waiting in a queue or the hunt for an operational ATM may be only a fleeting memory a year later, but in rural areas of the State, this is a continuing reality.
While the RBI has remonetised the economy, a shortfall of 12% of cash with the public still remains nationally. This is most stark in rural areas, where ATMs are often ‘out of cash’.
The thrust from banks clearly seems to be in urban areas, where, between June 2016 and 2017, ATM network grew by 21.9% to 11,309 machines. However, in rural and semi-urban areas, ATM network grew just by 7.2%, stagnating at 5,874 ATMs. This disparity is also reflected in cash disbursals, where money is first filled in urban areas before going towards villages. If in Bengaluru, ATMs became flush with cash in February itself, it was only in June that money started coming regularly at Vondaraguppe village in Ramanagaram. Even now, the highway ATM gets a cash refill only once a week, while it runs out of money in four days or so.
Or, take for instance, rural Jamboti village in Belagavi, where only one ATM is functional, while the other has had no cash for several weeks now. The uncertainty in finding money is forcing vendors like Mallamma towards Khanapura town or Belagavi city to withdraw cash. “I have started to withdraw money in bulk just once or twice a month, and I keep it in the house itself,” she says.
In Gamma village in Shivamogga, Lokesh says with ATMs being largely dry, quick withdrawal of money needed to pay labourers or purchasing of inputs is always in doubt. “I can’t pay for labour if the ATM does not have money. The cash crunch owing to demonetisation continues,” he said. With some ATMs having a ₹4,500 cap, one-time withdrawal for agriculture is becoming difficult. At Holenarsipur in Hassan district, B.R. Manjunath says: “I have to visit one ATM after another to withdraw ₹10,000. It seems like these ATMs run out of cash within a few hours of them depositing money.”
Apart from prioritising urban centres, the cash crunch was also intentional in the hope of encouraging cashless transactions in rural areas, said an official with a nationalised bank. “In rural areas, only 50% of the cash needed is supplied,” he said.
(Inputs from Veerendra P.M. in Shivamogga, Rishikesh Bahadur Desai in Belagavi, Sathish G.T. in Hassan, and Mohit M. Rao in Bengaluru)