Slight decline in bank rush, senior citizens get to exchange notes

New Delhi, Nov 19 : Crowds outside banks and ATMs declined marginally on Saturday as only senior citizens were allowed to exchange old notes.

Other people were seen waiting in long queues either to deposit their old notes or withdraw cash at banks and ATMs.

One Sunil Jain tweeted: "Bank lines much shorter! Was at HDFC bank at 10 (a.m.), cash over at 10.15 so line shortened!!! Cash will come on Monday they say (sic)."

"There is less crowd for exchanging high-value currency as only senior citizens have been allowed to do it today (Saturday). But there is still a rush for withdrawing and depositing cash," said a private Noida firm staffer Fareed Ahmad.

Ahmed, who said he had come to deposit cash in a bank in Noida, rued that he had to stand in queue for three hours to do so.

"A few days ago, I went to my bank to withdraw cash and spent a whole day in the process."

Even as all banks were giving preference to senior citizens in exchanging their old notes, they still had to wait in queues for their turn.

"I had to wait for two hours to exchange old notes," griped a senior citizen Dharam Das.

Another senior citizen Sanjay Parmanand was delighted as he did not have to wait for too long.

"It is good the government allowed only senior citizens to exchange their old currency on Saturday," Parmanand said.

Harish Jain, 62, standing in a queue at ICICI Bank's branch in Preet Vihar area of east Delhi, lamented he stood in queues for four days and managed to get the cash only on Saturday.

He said he was thankful to the government for setting aside one day for the senior citizens to exchange money.

"I was earlier not able to exchange cash or even withdraw money since sometimes banks ran out of cash or their timings ended," he said.