Our Correspondents
People anger and chaos getting intensified across the country on third day today, as they are not able to get currency for their daily usage. Long queue were seen at most banks and ATMs where people were hustling with each other to exchange and withdraw money today.
Angry customers were seen at various ATMs as banks struggled to dispense cash after the government withdrew large denomination notes in a shock move aimed at uncovering billions of dollars of unaccounted wealth hidden from the taxman.
Hundreds of thousands of people stood outside banks for a third day for long hours trying to replace 500 and 1,000 rupee bank notes that were abolished earlier in the week.
These bills made up more than 80 per cent of the currency in circulation leaving millions of people without cash and threatening to grind large parts of the cash-driven economy to a halt.
“There is chaos everywhere,” said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejrilwal. He said PM Modi’s move had upended the lives of the poor and working while the rich – whose wealth he had sought to target – had found loopholes to get around the new rules.
People argued and banged the glass doors of a branch of Standard Chartered in Delhi after the security guards blocked entry, saying there were already too many people inside the bank.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said that the government’s ambitious plan to withdraw 500 and 1,000 rupee notes from circulation was a “huge scam” and said it should be nixed immediately.
“Before the PM announced the move on Tuesday, the BJP and its friends had been alerted and they had already stashed their cash,” he said.
Days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the dramatic announcement on Tuesday, a BJP official in Punjab posted photos of bundles of the new 2,000 rupee notes on Twitter, Mr Kejriwal said.
Also as evidence, Mr Kejriwal offered that though deposits in banks were plummeting in the months leading to July this year, large sums had been deposited since then, indicating that many people had tried to get rid of untaxed wealth.
“The other thing is that despite all the chaos that is going on, no black money will come back in the system. Black money will only be redistributed, it will only change hands,” he said, adding that the move was encouraging touts and agents.
“Several people have died in the last few days, there is chaos everywhere. Modi ji’s surgical strike is not against black money, but against the common man who had saved up… we demand an immediate rollback,” he said.
Hailed as a landmark move to curb ‘black’ or unaccounted wealth, PM Modi on Tuesday night declared that 500 and 1,000 rupee notes illegal from midnight. New 500 and 2,000 notes would replace them, making the old ones “worthless pieces of paper”, he said.