Narendra Modi's demonetisation step turning out a major failure?

Lucknow/New Delhi: Good works of ruling BJP government and banks after the demonetisation step are turning futile with maximum ATMs here and in national capital being non functional, forcing people to stand in long queues in bank branches.

Government's plan of allowing people to withdraw Rs 2000 a day from ATM counters have failed completely as four days after announcing the scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, maximum number of people are still left cashless.

People, who were lauding the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking the most daring effort towards eradicating black money, are now condemning the Centre for not making proper arrangements at ATMs and Banks.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in a press conference on Saturday, clearly hinted that problem would persist for now as due to technical limitations, it would take another 3 to 4 days to recaliberate the ATMs for new currency notes.

A local resident of Lucknow, Samarth Srivastava said, "I stood in a queue for around 3 hours in an SBI branch but failed to withdraw or exchange as bank was left with no currency till the time I reached the counter. The same is the condition with ATMs. Should I go to office or stand in lines for a complete day with no assurance that I would eventually get the money."

Government has allowed to use the old currency notes at petrol pumps but a person having a two-wheeler has his own genuine problem. Scooty, being used by a major Indian population for commuting, has the tank capacity of just 5 litres petrol, i.e. in Rs 300 or Rs 350, the tank becomes full. In such case government's decision of allowing old currency remains of no use as petrol tenders ask for change.

Government advised people of making maximum use of cashless transactions but small shopkeepers in local market have no such facility. Their businesses have been badly affected from last four days as people don't have small currency notes for making transactions and hence either they are rushing for super markets or they are taking commodities on credit.

People having marriage functions at home are suffering the most as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's one decision has transformed their celebration into dismay. The government has fixed a withdraw amount of Rs 20,000 per week. Not everywhere payments through cheque could be made.

Anil Agarwal, a resident of Delhi, said, "My daughter's marriage is on November 14th and I am finding myself helpless in accumulating the legal money for various transactions as not every payment could be made through cheques and debit or credit cards."

Meanwhile, Jaitley's press conference today had a logical reply for his political opponents but he definitely seemed helpless for the problems of a common man.