Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addressed the press on the issue of demonetisation and said that re-calibrating the ATMs will take two to three weeks.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the country by surprise on Tuesday when he announced the scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
Jaitley met high-level staff in the finance department and senior bankers including SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya before addressing the media.
He said that the government is monitoring the demonetisation process closely. He said that people are indeed facing problems in exchanging money and at the same time, appreciated the bank employees of doing an incredible job by going beyond their working hours.
He backed the government’s decision and called it a big operation on curbing black money in the country, which goes into the crores.
He talked about the different types of transactions going on in the banks and added that SBI has made transactions of at least Rs 2.28 crores in the two days for 58 lakh people.
He said that SBI has made monetary transactions of around Rs 54,270 crore, while an amount of Rs 47,868 crore was deposited in the bank.
The finance minister said that people have been cooperating with the government and expected the queues to come down in the following days.
Jaitley also spoke about the technical difficulties that the banks have been going through in re-calibrating the ATMs according to the new notes. He also said that this process could not have been done in advance because it was important to maintain the secrecy of the operation.
He said that the marginal spike in bank deposits in SBI was only for September 2016, because of the release of Pay Commission's salary arrears on 31 August.
He said that the main motive of the operation was to clean up the money.
Jewellers have been asked to submit a report on the stock and the amount of old currency notes that they have.
He said that the government understands the inconvenience caused to people and that people will soon be assisted.
He also encouraged people to use plastic money.
Upon being asked how much time would it take to fill the 86 percent gap, he said the process will take time and that RBI and SBI are working closely on it.
He added that even though banks have enough money, not all denominations are available.
He said that no change has been made in the smaller currency notes available in the market.
The government’s decision left people in a frenzy as queues formed in front of banks and ATMs to get their notes exchanged or money withdrawn.
The chaos made the government extend the deadline by another 72 hours until 14 November.
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