Bhubaneswar, Nov 24: The Central team, which visited Odisha on Wednesday to study the problems in the implementation of the demonetisation of Rs.1000 and Rs.500 notes, expressed pleasure over the initiatives taken by State government to ease situation. Various strategies have been discussed to sort out people’s pain in future. A report in this regard will be submitted to Centre by the team. This was informed by team member, Suresh Vasisht. He said this after holding a review meeting with top officials and bankers here at the State Secretariat. The team reviewed withdrawal situation, status of calibration of ATMs to dispense Rs.2,000 and Rs.500 notes, demand of mobile banking in unbanked gram panchayats and overall impact of demonetisation on various segments. The State special secretary, Finance, Ashok Meena, who was a part of the meeting, emphasised on problems mostly in rural areas. According to him, the situation in urban areas has eased to some extent while there is still problem in rural areas and the Central team and the RBI officials have been asked to provide more small currency notes of Rs 100/500 denomination to rural areas. They have also reiterated CM Naveen Patnaik’s demand to make transaction facilities for farmers through cooperative banks as procurement and sowing season is doing the round.
The Central team has visited Odisha as part of decision of the Union Government to depute teams of Additional Secretaries/Joint Secretaries /Directors to various States and Union Territories to assess the ground level situation amidst reports of cash crunch and review the currency availability across the State in the network of bank branches, ATMs and post offices. Even almost two weeks after the Rs.1,000 and Rs.500 notes ceased to be legal tender, with exceptions in some areas like petrol bunks, hospitals, and the latest exemption for in government departments for sale of seed to farmers, general public have been facing great inconvenience for exchange, withdrawal from the banks and the ATMs.
